For seven years Mr. Zhang has refused to renounce the practice of Falun Gong, despite punishments such as torture and solitary confinement. In February 2008, Mr. Zhang was put in solitary confinement again.

In February 2001, Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Zhang Xuefeng was illegally arrested. He was sentenced to eight and a half years in prison by the Xiaguan District Court in Nanjing City. Mr. Zhang has now been held at the Suzhou City Prison for seven years.

Mr. Zhang Xuefeng, born in 1965, was an employee of the Civil Engineering Department Office of Nanjing Industrial University. At the end of 2002, Mr. Zhang was taken to Suzhou City Prison, where he was brutally tortured. In the 9th Ward, four or five prisoners, headed by guard Ni (male, first name unknown), pushed him to the floor and stepped on his head.

In the summer of 2005, guards planned to force him to be "transformed" in another squadron, where practitioner Mr. Chen Guanghui was tortured to a vegetative state and died later. Mr. Zhang did not cooperate with the unreasonable demands, so Guard Chen from the 9th Ward led six or seven prisoners to take Mr. Zhang by force to solitary confinement and locked him there for three months, but Mr. Zhang still refused to renounce Falun Gong.

Since December 2006, his family has tried to visit him many times, but they have been turned away every time. Mr. Zhang is not allowed to make phone calls or communicate by mail.

After the Chinese New Year in February 2008, Mr. Zhang was put in solitary confinement again.

Four practitioners have died as result of being tortured in Suzhou City Prison: Mr. Chen Wanzhi, Mr. Jiang Bingsheng, Mr. Chen Guanghui, and Mr. Yu Huinan. Mr. Chen Guanghui was tortured to death at the prison hospital. The three other practitioners passed away several days after they were released, including Mr. Chen Guanghui, in his 40s, and Mr. Yu Huinan, in his 60s.