Mr. Yang Zheng from Tangshan City Arrested Again

Name: Yang Zheng (杨正)
Gender: Male
Age: 36
Address: Fuzhuang Village, Daodi Town, the Fengnan District, Tangshan City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Farmer
Date of Most Recent Arrest: February 25, 2012
Most Recent Place of Detention: Tangshan City No.1 Detention Center (唐山第一看守所)
City: Tangshan
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, forced labor, brainwashing, illegal sentencing, beatings, torture, home ransacked, interrogation, detention

(Minghui.org) Police arrested Mr. Yang Zheng from Tangshan, who began to practice Falun Gong in August 1994, on February 25, 2012, and took him to the Kaiping District Police Department. A Kaiping prosecutor charged him formally at the end of March and moved him to the Tangshan No. 1 Detention Center. He was previously arrested in 2008 and served two years of forced labor.

After officers from Kaiping Domestic Security Division and crime division arrested him on February 25, 2012, they searched his home and confiscated a desktop and a laptop, along with other personal belongings.

This was Mr. Yang’s second arrest. Daodi Police Station agents previously arrested him in July 2008 and sent him to the Shijiazhuang Forced Labor Camp on August 18 to serve a two-year term. Before his release in 2010, he was tortured with electric shocks and was handcuffed behind his back, among other forms of abuse. He lost hearing in his right ear after an inmate hit him in the head.

Below are details of Mr. Yang’s suffering since 2008.

Arrest

Several Daodi Town employees went to Mr. Yang’s home the morning of July 28, 2008, to harass him. After searching his home they took a Falun Gong brochure and two DVDs. Unsatisfied with what they had found, they returned twice in the afternoon in Mr. Yang's absence. In the evening, seven officers showed up and arrested him. They confiscated a computer and a printer. After he was taken to the Daodi Police Station, the police chief and officer Li Jinghe interrogated him. Li Jinghe hit his arms and chest with a high voltage baton. The shocks felt like scorpion stings. His chest and left arm were covered by blisters and black dots.

On July 29, 2008, he was taken to Fengnan District Police Department, handcuffed behind his back. From there he was transferred to Fengnan Detention Center. A criminal inmate there hit him on the head and damaged his right ear. Mr. Yang was sentenced to two years of forced labor on August 19, 2008 and sent to Shijiazhuang Forced Labor Camp.

Torture and Brainwashing

In the beginning, Mr. Yang was confined to a room by himself. The guards assigned two criminal inmates, Xiong Chenwu and Chen Lei, to abuse him. Every day from 5:30 a.m. to 9 p.m. he was forced to squat on the floor. After 18 days of squatting, one of his feet lost feeling. For more than six months this foot was numb, and he walked with a limp.

Forced Labor

Soon, Mr. Yang began to do forced labor. In November 2008, he began to have pain that stretched from his back to legs. After a month the pain did not get better. At his request, guard Zhang Li took him to the No. 2 Provincial Hospital for an examination. After returning, Zhang Li said, “You have no problem,” but he still handed him medicine. In the evening, Mr. Yang took the medicine and immediately felt a burning in his stomach and right leg. He vomited and stopped taking the medicine. Bothered by the pain, he complained to the guards several times. Finally, Zhang Li took him to a prison clinic. A woman doctor told him, "You are OK, go back."

After returning to the camp, Zhang Li told a criminal inmate to let him walk. The extreme lower back pain took all of Mr. Yang's energy. He could barely walk. But the merciless inmate pushed him to walk. As Mr. Yang grabbed the door handle to maintain his balance, the inmate shoved him with all his strength and injured Mr. Yang’s arm. Mr. Yang was forced to walk for two days. Zhang Li told him, "You have to choose between walking or working." Mr. Yang chose to work. During the 2008 Beijing Olympics, Mr. Yang and other practitioners were forced to sit on a bench every day for three months. Occasionally they were ordered to walk in military parade style.

Between June and July 2009, Mr. Yang’s left nostril was congested [due to long-term stress and fatigue], and he had trouble breathing. The labor camp refused to reduce his workload. In July, his camp unit was assigned to make packing boxes for August moon cakes. One day Mr. Yang felt very unwell, which slowed him down. The guards still made him work till 11 p.m. Before his term expired, they forced him to sit on a small plastic stool every day for more than three weeks, until the day he was released. The mistreatment and abuse took a toll on his health. When he left the labor camp, he could not carry anything with his right arm, and he had pain in his legs. He could barely do any physical work.

Mr. Yang and his family suffered tremendously. His parents are honest and hardworking peasants. His father often cried. His mother was in her late 50s, but she looked much older. After his recent arrest in February 2012, his family’s nightmare resumed.

Parties responsible for persecuting Mr. Yang:
Kaiping Police Department operator: [phone], [phone], [phone]
Chen Yongwen, police chief
Zhao Chunsheng, Domestic Security head: [phone]
Li Xiaohui, Kaiping prosecutor: [phone]
Chief Prosecutor: [phone]
Kaiping Police Department: [phone], [phone]
Daodi Police Station: [phone], [phone]
Li Jinghe and Wang Weimin, officers with the Daodi Police Station