(Clearwisdom.net)
Practitioner Ms. Zhang Jingyan is a 41-year-old farmer living in Yongzhi Village, Shuangcheng Town in Shuangcheng City, Heilongjiang Province.
On July 22, 1999, Ms. Zhang went to Heilongjiang Provincial government to appeal for Falun Gong, and was arrested and sent to District 8 Stadium. Later she was sent to a school and then to the local police station. On July 25, 1999, she went to Beijing to appeal. There she was beaten and verbally abused by Beijing police. Police later took her back to her hometown, Shuangcheng City, and detained her in the police department for 25 days. Police also illegally ransacked her home.
In January of 2000, Zhang Jingyan again went to Beijing to appeal. Shuangcheng City "610 Office"* illegally detained her for three months and sent her to the town brainwashing center for more than 20 days. The center personnel later forced her family to pay 6,200 Yuan** before letting her go.
In June 2000, she made another attempt to visit Beijing. On her train ride, police forced all passengers to utter curse words against Falun Gong and its founder. Zhang Jingyan refused and was removed from the train and sent to Police Station No. 2 in Shanhaiguan City, where she was beaten and verbally abused by police. Later the police sent her to Shuangcheng Detention Center No. 2. After more than eighty days, her family paid police more than 2,800 Yuan to bail her out.
Around the Chinese New Year of 2001, police from Shuangcheng Railway Station and security personnel from Zhang's village came to her home repeatedly to search for her. They demanded that her family turn her in "dead or alive," causing them great stress. On January 28, 2001, at 10 p.m., Yongzhi Village Head Zhu Wanfu led several police to Zhang's house to search for her. The next day, Police Chief Zhang Guofu also led a group of police to her house to arrest and raid. They took away a VCD player. They also gave the rental tenants a hard time by throwing their belongings all over the place. When the police suspected that there might be practitioners in another house, they did not hesitate to break down the door and smash the windows. The house got so cold that the radiator pipe froze and burst. On the Chinese New Year Eve and the New Year Day, the police came again, forcing Zhang Jingyan into hiding.
On April 19, 2002, Harbin police broke into Zhang's rental apartment through the window, at the Huayuan Residential Area. They arrested Zhang and took her to the Shuangcheng City Police Department. A police officer grabbed her hair and shook her head back and forth, while several others started to torture her by pulling her handcuffs, stomping on her feet, kicking her legs and slapping her face. Zhang's legs and feet turned purple. Afterwards, police sent her to Criminal Investigation Team 2. The Harbin police employed brutal torture to extort a confession. They handcuffed her to a radiator pipe, and whipped her legs with plastic hoses. She was hurt so badly that six months later there were still places on her legs that had no feeling. The police took turns whipping her with plastic hoses and said, "We will beat you as hard as we can without killing you." On April 21st, police sent her to the Harbin No. 2 Detention Center. The "610 Office" police used an electric baton to shock her. They handcuffed her to the radiator pipe. The handcuff marks remained visible many days.
Zhang Jingyan was finally sentenced to 10 years in prison.
* "610 Office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.
** Yuan- 500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China.
