Having Survived Horrific Torture in Custody, Accountant Faces Prosecution Again for His Faith

Based on an original report from Minghui.org

A married couple in Dalian City, Liaoning Province were arrested on July 15, 2021, for their faith in Falun Gong. While Ms. Miao Yuhuan, was released in the afternoon, Mr. Zhang Jun was put in criminal detention at the Jinzhou Detention Center and is now facing prosecution.

Latest Arrest

On July 14, 2021, officials from the Dalian Political and Legal Affairs Committee asked to see Zhang and Miao at the middle school where they worked. 

Around noon the next day, a woman who claimed to be from the residential committee also knocked on the couple’s home. Miao refused to open the door. Shortly after, she heard someone attempt to use a key to open the door. 

Zhang returned home shortly after to be surrounded by 20 plainclothes officers and forced into a black van. Miao was also arrested and both were taken to the Dengshahe Police Station.

While the couple was taken away, three officers stayed behind and ransacked the their home. A laptop, cellphones, and hand-copied Falun Gong books were confiscated. 

In the afternoon, the police came back and interrogated the couple’s neighbor, asking if the couple had talked with them about Falun Gong or given them any Falun Gong materials, and when the couple had put up Falun Gong related decorations on their door. 

At 3 p.m., Zhang called his mother and informed her of the couple’s arrest. Miao was released the same day but Zhang remained detained.

When Zhang’s family went to the police station on August 2 to demand the return of confiscated items, they learned from an officer named Li Jin that the Jinzhou Procuratorate had approved Zhang’s arrest on July 22. According to Li, the family was not informed because he did not have their phone number. When the family asked to take a photo of the document, Li refused. 

Harassment Before Arrest

Before their latest arrest, the Zhang couple had suffered continual harassment since in November of 2020. During the time, the authorities were vigilant in trying to have the couple renounce Falun Gong in the nationwide “Zero-out” campaign.

The first harassment came around 6:30 a.m. on November 3, 2020. That morning, a few officers waited in the hallway of the couple’s apartment building and arrested Zhang as soon as he left his apartment. While the couple was taken to the police station, the police ransacked their home and confiscated their Falun Gong books, a laptop, speakers, and several other items.

Fortunately, the couple were released in the next day. However, pressured by the Jinpu New District Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC)—an extralegal agency of the persecution—the education bureau suspended the couple’s salaries in November 2020. The bureau also made threats to fire the couple if they did not renounce Falun Gong before the end of that year.

Zhang was summoned by Wu Jianchang and Gong Xueli, the head and deputy head of the education bureau, on April 20, 2021, and ordered to renounce Falun Gong. As he refused to comply, he was given warning again on May 11. 

In June 2021, Sun Pengfei, the principal of the school the couple worked at, told Zhang the renewal of his employment contract and that his application for promotion would be denied if he did not renounce his faith. 

Husband Severely Persecuted, Wife Put in Labor Camp

Zhang and Miao, both 49-years-old, took up Falun Gong before the persecution of the practice began in 1999. After practicing Falun Gong, Miao’s severe stomach problems and clavus disappeared and Zhang quit smoking and drinking. The couple also became kinder and more selfless through following the practice’s principles of “Truth, Compassion, and Tolerance”.

In 2000, Zhang went to Beijing to appeal for his faith. He was then arrested and given three years of forced labor at the notorious Dalian Forced Labor Camp. 

On March 19, 2001, several ambulances drove into the labor camp. Ordered by the deputy head of the labor camp, Zhang Baolin, the guards Qiao Wei, Wang Jun, Jing Dianke, Zhu Fengshan, and Sun Jian led a group of inmates and ordered the hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners detained there to renounce their faith one by one. 

Those who refused to comply were dragged into the hallway, beaten with a rubber club, and shocked with electric batons. The savage yells from the perpetrators, the crackling sparks from the electric batons, and the anguished screams from the practitioners terrified all who were detained in the building.

The torture would continue well into the evening and many practitioners were forced to renounce their faith against their will.

Zhang recalled being handcuffed in the hallway and being told by an inmate, “You are the next [one].” He was handcuffed so tight and for so long that he lost feeling in his hands by that time.

The guard Wang Jun yelled, “Zhang Jun, are you giving up Falun Gong or not?”

“I’m not giving it up,” Zhang replied. 

Having the thought that he would rather die than be “transformed,” Zhang ran into the heating radiator as an inmate dragged him to the torture room. His head was covered with blood and his nose was broken. He lost consciousness after. (Editor’s note: Falun Gong’s teaching prohibits killing or suicide. Due to the severity of the persecution, some practitioners were forced to take irrational actions, which also points to the brutality of the persecution.)

Thinking that Zhang may have died, the inmates became scared. Guard Wang Jun signaled them to stop the torture. They wrapped Zhang in a military coat and took him to the clinic of the labor camp. The doctor there said they didn’t have the proper equipment to treat him and asked the guards to take him to the hospital. 

Without anesthetics, Zhang had more than ten stitches on his head. In the evening, he was taken back to the labor camp. The guards held him in a warehouse and handcuffed him to the bed. 

Also in the warehouse were practitioners Qu Hui, whose spine had been broken from the beating; Wang Zhiyong who was in a coma; as well as Yin Yanjun, Gao Feng, Zhang Fuming, Liu Zongyao, Zhang Ximing, Zheng Wei, Teng Zhizhou, and Li Jisheng, who were handcuffed and forced to sit on the concrete floor—all were covered with injuries from the savage beatings in the afternoon. Several of the practitioners later passed away or became disabled.

After Zhang was released, he was removed from his position as a school accountant and instead sent to the boiler room to cook rice for the students and teachers. Bai Guirong and Song Fujin of the Dengshahe Town government also frequently harassed him and ordered him to write the statements to renounce Falun Gong.

On October 15, 2004, Song and a few other officers broke into the boiler room Zhang worked at and attempted to arrest him. After he escaped, the police searched the school to look for him.

Bi Kefeng and Lu Zhiqiang of the Jinzhou Domestic Security Office went to the school on December 4, 2008, to try to arrest Zhang again. When they failed to find him, they arrested Miao instead. They took away her home key and ransacked their residence.

When the couple’s family went to the Liangjiaodian Police Station to demand Miao’s release, an officer implied that Zhang would have to turn himself in in exchange. 

As Zhang was forced to live away from home to hide from the police, the police gave Miao a labor camp term at the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, when their daughter was only two years old.

Original article: https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/8/13/194592.html