Issued by Clearwisdom Net

Mr. Zhang Litian was arrested several times for practicinf Falun Gong.  In April 2008, he was arrested again in the name of "preparing for the Olympics."  On August 7, 2008, he was sentenced to five years in prison. On November 17, 2008, he was beaten to death in Jinzhou City Prison.

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Yu Zhou was tortured to death on Chinese New Year's Eve, February 6, 2008. On November 25, 2008, Chongwen District Court in Beijing sentenced his wife, Ms. Xu Na to three years in prison. The whole process took only a few minutes.

On November 17, 2008 Mr. Zhang Litian was beaten to death after being detained in Jinzhou City Prison for one month. His daughter, Zhang Xintong, an elementary school student, is only nine years old.

Mr. Zhang Litian (right)

Mr. Zhang Litian, 36, lived in Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province. His hometown is Laizhou City, Shandong Province. He was employed by the Chaoyang City Precise Strip Steel Factory as an in-house crane operator. He began practicing Falun Gong in 1998, changed his bad temper, and started working very hard. After the persecution started in 1999, he was harassed and mistreated by police.

In February 2000, officers from Guangming Police Station in Shuangta District arrested and detained him for 15 days in the Chaoyang City Detention Center. He was released after the police extorted 2000 yuan from him. In July 2000, he went to the Political Security Office of the Chaoyang City Police Department to declare all his written guarantees during the detention null and void. The officers tortured him by tying his hands behind his back, then hanging him from his tied up hands, forcing his head down. His wife came to the office and reasoned with officers who tortured him, and he was released.

In the spring of 2001, Mr. Zhang and his wife took a walk with their young daughter. Officers from Lingfeng Police Station drove a vehicle to block them off, and a group of police arrested Mr. Zhang on the street. Mr. Zhang was holding their daughter, who was crying because she felt threatened. The couple loudly criticized the officers that scared their baby and told them to back off so he could put down the crying baby. The officers scattered, and Mr. Zhang escaped. He had to leave home to avoid being arrested and lost his job in July of 2001.

Mr. Zhang had to pedal a cart to make a living. In the summer of 2001, an overweight man asked to go to Nanta Community, and he called on his cell phone with some secret coded message as soon as he got into the cart. When they arrived at Nanta Community, several plainclothes officers arrested Mr. Zhang. He then learned that the overweight man was also an officer from the Lingfeng Police Station. They imprisoned him in Shijiahetao Detention Center. Mr. Zhang went on hunger strike, and was brutally force-fed. He was released after 19 days when his life was in danger.

Upon returning home, officers from the Lingfeng Police Station kept harassing him, and threatened him and his wife with arrest at any time. A couple of days later, when Mr. Zhang went grocery shopping, he was arrested again by officers from the Lingfeng Police Station. They directly took him to be detained in the Xidayingzi Forced Labor Camp with a two-year term. He was inhumanly tortured in the camp, beaten by Warden Yu Zhentao, and locked in a Small Cell (1) by Deputy Warden Li Fu. He was released in the beginning of 2004.

On the evening of September 20, 2004, officer Qi Zongmin and Community Administration Chair Ma Yue arrived at Mr. Zhang's home, ransacked the place, and ordered Mr. Zhang to give them his personal ID, which they failed to collect. They took Mr. Zhang's cell phone instead. On June 18, 2005, Qi Zongmin and another officer stormed into Mr. Zhang's home again, ransacked the place, then threatened to send Mr. Zhang to a forced labor camp. Mr. Zhang Litian was forced to go to his hometown of Zhuma Village, Shahe Town, Laizhou City, Shandong Province.

He was barely settled in Shandong in April 2008 when the Party arrested him to "prepare for the Olympics." Laizhou City 610 Office Chief Liu Jingbing led a group of officers to ransack his father's home where he was staying, took 900 yuan from Mr. Zhang Litian's pocket, then tried to take their motorcycle away, but were stopped by the family. The police transferred Mr. Zhang to the 1st Detention Center of Jinzhou City.

In July 2008, Taihe District Court held a secret trial in the detention center for Mr. Zhang without notifying his family and issued a sentence of five years in prison on August 7, 2008. When Mr. Zhang's family heard of this from their friends, his 72 year-old father rushed to Jinzhou City and hired a lawyer to represent Mr. Zhang in the second trial. The Jinzhou City Middle Court refused to hold a retrial for Mr. Zhang's case and sustained the original sentencing. Mr. Zhang was taken to the 20^th Ward of the Jinzhou City Prison in October 2008.

According to eyewitnesses, Mr. Zhang Litian was beaten multiple times by prisoners upon entering the prison. On November 16, 2008, he went on hunger strike to protest the brutal beatings. The next day, on November 17, 2008, Warden Zhang Baozhi encouraged four prisoners (including Liu Peiyan and Li Yong) to cruelly beat Mr. Zhang Litian to death. Many prisoners witnessed this incident.

On November 18, 2008, the local police called Mr. Zhang's family in Laizhou City, Shandong Province and told them that he died on November 17, 2008 from a heart attack. Mr .Zhang's family expressed disbelief, saying that Mr. Zhang never had any heart problems. Only one month earlier, his aunt visited him in the prison, and he was in good health. Mr. Zhang wrote to his family on November 5, 2008, asking them to send a pair of cotton quilted shoes. How did he suddenly have an heart attack? Why did they not notify his family on the same day? Was any rescue effort made?

Mr. Zhang Litian's family saw his body on November 24, 2008 in the Jinzhou City Funeral House. There were many injuries, especially around his heart. It was obvious that the wounds were caused by a beating, not a heart attack. They requested through their lawyer that the Jinzhou City Suburban Procuratorate conduct an autopsy. Warden Zhang Baozhi had Mr. Zhang's body taken back to the Prison on November 26, 2008, deceived the funeral home into thinking that they were going to conduct the autopsy, and asked the funeral home to keep it a secret. There is no freezer in the prison. The Prison Administration is responsible for any destruction of evidence by this deception.

The Suburban Procuratorate Judge claimed the autopsy must be done by local forensic doctors. They have not agreed to the family's request to hire a third party forensic doctor. The Prison Administration is trying very hard to cover up their crime. They want to lie to the public and claim that Mr. Zhang died of sudden illness. Many prisoners that witnessed his death were enraged because they saw through the Prison Administration's evil intent by conducting a "Contagious disease prevention education." Early on the morning of November 21, 2008, the four prisoners who beat Mr. Zhang Litian to death were taken to an unknown place.

Xin Tingquan, Jinzhou City Prison Director: 86-13941606658 (Cell), 86-416-3496001 (Office)

(1) The detainee is locked up in a very small cell individually. The guards handcuff practitioners behind their backs in a fixed position, in which the practitioners can neither move nor lie down. The small cell is very damp and no sunshine comes in. Detainees have to urinate and defecate in the cell. Only half of a regular meal is served to detainees locked up in a small cell during the daytime. During the night the rats run around. The stench in the small cell is so bad that it is difficult to breathe.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/11/29/190687.html

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Yu Zhou was tortured to death on Chinese New Year's Eve, February 6, 2008. His wife, Ms. Xu Na is still under severe persecution. At 9:00 a.m. on November 25, 2008, the Chongwen District Court in Beijing sentenced Ms. Xu Na to three years in prison. The whole process took only a few minutes because the results had already been decided, and they were only going through the motions in court. Ms. Xu requested to appeal to a higher court.

Ms. Xu Na's lawyer Cheng Hai did plead innocent for her in the July 2008 session. The judge, Ma Xiaoyu, refused to decide based on the lawyer's factual legal arguments. Cheng Hai was not present for this court session. He said to the media that the sentencing is unfair and he would help Ms. Xu Na appeal to the higher court. He said, "Falun Gong has no illegal definition in China." He believed that based on the efforts of those in the legal field, someday the Chinese government will have to admit the legal existence of Falun Gong.

After Mr. Yu Zhou was tortured to death during the 2008 Olympics season, the Haidian District 610 Office, the local police, and community administrators often harassed Ms. Xu Na's parents, threatened them, and forbade them from speaking with foreign journalists. They notified Mr. Yu Zhou's family several days ago that they would process Mr. Yu's body, and they ordered Ms. Xu Na to write a letter granting permission to let Mr. Yu's family represent her in dealing with Mr. Yu's body.

Ms. Xu Na was born in Changchun City, Jilin Province. All of her family members are artists. Her father is a painter in the Chinese Artists Association and her mother teaches at the Jilin Province Art Academy. Ms. Xu Na won an award in the 1998 Chinese Young Artists Oil Painting Exhibit. She is very well-known in Hong Kong and Mainland China. Her husband was a very talented artist and musician.

In 2001, because she opened their apartment to fellow practitioners coming to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong, Ms. Xu Na was sentenced to five years in prison. She returned home in 2006. At around 10:00 p.m. on January 26, 2008, on the way home after Mr. Yu Zhou's performance, they were stopped by police conducting an "Olympics check." The police found out that they were Falun Gong practitioners, then illegally arrested them and detained the couple in the Tongzhou District Detention Center.

At 9:00 a.m. on January 27, 2008, four officers ransacked Ms. Xu Na's parent's home in Haidian District then ransacked her younger sister's home. Mr. Yu Zhou was tortured to death on February 6, 2008, at age 42. The detention center did not allow Ms. Xu Na to attend his funeral. They transfered her to the Beijing City Detention Center, which is the notorious "7^th Branch" of the Beijing City Police Department, where "important prisoners" are detained.

Ma Xiaoyu, Chongwen District Procuratorate Judge in charge of Ms. Xu Na' case: 86-10-87895118
Han Aijing (female), Chongwen District Procuratorate Prosecutor: 86-10-67079931

Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2008/11/28/190515.html