(Minghui.org) “Seven years in prison is not scary. Losing one's conscience is the most scary,” Mr. Zhang Xinzi told his wife. He was sentenced to seven years in prison and tortured until he was nearly blind.
Mr. Zhang, from Xishui County in Hubei Province, was sent to the Xishui No.1 Detention Center four years ago where he was beaten by guards until he was nearly blind. A year later, he was sentenced to seven years in prison and transferred to the Shayang Prison, where he was forced to do slave labor for a shoe factory and where his eyesight continued to deteriorate and his body was often numb.
In a recent family visit in prison, he was not even able to clearly see his family members when they were right in front of him.
Mr. Zhang told his family that he went through two physical examinations when he was first sent to the Xishui No.1 Detention Center. The examinations showed that he was healthy and his eyesight was normal with his left eyesight being 1.2 and his right eyesight being 1.5. The medical results are still being kept in the detention center. When Mr. Zhang's family requested to see his medical results, a guard refused them.
Guards from the Shayang Prison visited Mr. Zhang's family and persuaded his wife to collaborate with them and to persuade her husband to renounce his belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. As a reward, they would reduce Mr. Zhang's prison term.
Hoping to alleviate her husband's suffering, his wife repeated what the guards taught her to Mr. Zhang when he called home. Mr. Zhang told his wife, “My teacher taught me to be a good person and to follow the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. Is it wrong to be a good person?” After comforting his wife, he continued, “Seven years in prison is not scary. Losing one's conscience is the most scary.”
