Name: Zhang Shuxing (张树兴)
Gender: Male
Age: 58
Address: Xinchenli, Kaifa District of Dalian City
Occupation: Running a family hotel
Date of most recent arrest: June 5, 2007
Most recent place of detention: No. 1 institute of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp (马三家教养院一所)
City: Shenyang
Province: Liaoning
Persecution Suffered: Electric shock, sleep deprivation, forced labor, beatings, hanging by handcuffed wrists, torture, force-feedings, physical restraint, interrogation, detention
Key Persecutors: Wang Peizhong, Wanli Police Station director of Kaifa District; Gao Hongchang, No. 1 Institute director of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp; Jin Hongbo, brigade captain who specializes in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners.
(Clearwisdom) (By a correspondent from Shenyang) On June 5, 2007, Mr. Zhang Shuxing was detained by Wanli Police. After 54 days of detention he was sentenced to two years in a forced labor camp. He was sent to No. 5 Brigade of Dalian Forced Labor Camp. Four days later, he was transferred to the No. 1 Institute of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. There he was subjected to various types of torture and was also put into a "special treatment room."
1. Vicious Beatings
On June 5, 2007, Mr. Zhang was taken to a detention center by officers from Wanli Police Station. As soon as he entered the cell, someone asked him, "What is your name?" When he refused to answer, five or six inmates started beating him. They used the bottoms of their shoes to slap his mouth and head. Mr. Zhang lost his hearing during the beating, though he recovered it slowly after two months.
On June 28, Mr. Zhang was transferred to the No. 5 Brigade of Dalian Forced Labor Camp. Guards ordered all the new arrivals to stand facing a wall. Mr. Zhang refused to follow the order and was immediately beaten. In the afternoon, the guards ordered all new arrivals to shave their heads. When they called Mr. Zhang, he told the police, "First, I will not recite prison regulations. Second, I will not wear the prison uniform. Third, I will not shave my head. Fourth, I will not work for the Communist Party. And fifth, I will not answer roll calls." The guards looked at him in surprise and did not say a word.
On August 1, 2007, a guard led Mr. Zhang to a dormitory of Section One of the No. 1 Institute in the labor camp. He called up four guards who tied him to a tiger bench. They shaved his head and put a helmet on him. His hands and feet were cuffed to the tiger bench during the day and cuffed to his bed at night.
On August 2, he was sent to Brigade 2 of the No. 1 Institute of Masanjia Forced Labor Camp. As soon as he entered the building, he was kicked from behind by guard Dong Xiao.
On August 8, when Mr. Zhang refused to work, Gao, captain of Brigade 2, walked up to him and slapped him in the face twice.
On September 29, Mr. Zhang was transferred to Brigade 3. Because he refused to work, guard Li Feng announced that no one was allowed to speak to him.
On October 4, Li Feng yelled at a guard next to Mr. Zhang for speaking to him. When Mr. Zhang tried to explain, Li walked up and slapped him three times. Mr. Zhang told Li Feng that it was against the law to hit people. Li then punched him in the head three times. As a result, some of Mr. Zhang's teeth loosened, and he could no longer use his false teeth. He requested to see a dentist, but prison officials ignored him. After the beating, the guard made him stay about 30 meters away from everyone else. He was not allowed to stand and had to sit in the ditches of a cornfield without any cushion. Guards were assigned to watch him constantly.
2. Denied Family Visits
Since November 2007, the prison officials have refused to let Mr. Zhang see his family.
Around the middle of December, when he refused to put on a prison uniform, the guards would not let him wear a winter jacket. Masanjia is located north of Shenyang and is very cold in the winter. The guards also broke into his personal locker and stole his lunch box, battery, radio, electric shaver, and other items.
3. Tortured Eleven Times in the "Special Treatment Room"
On March 9, 2009, in order to achieve a 100 percent "transformation" rate, director Gao Hongchang transferred Mr. Zhang Shuxing from the First Brigade to the Third Brigade, which contained only Falun Gong practitioners. They put him on the fourth floor for "special treatment."
First the guards strip-searched him to humiliate him. They then took away all his clothes except his underwear.
They took him to brigade captain Yu Jiang's office. Yu has a bunk bed frame in his office. They tied Mr. Zhang to one end of the bed frame so that the beam of the headboard was against his thighs. They then cuffed his hands to the other end of the bed so that just the tips of his toes touched the floor. A rope was used to pull his back toward the bottom of the bed.
After a while, when the person can no longer tolerate the pain, the guards use electric batons to shock the person, or kick the rope in order to put pressure on the person's back. In desperate condition, the person often vomits until his stomach is empty. Sometimes, the guards kick the buttocks and injure the legs. When the person's hands turn blue and purple, the guards rub them so that the hands hurt even more with numbness and swelling.
The prison specially assigned a doctor so that they could torture Mr. Zhang more freely. They took turns torturing him. They used cigarette smoke to choke him. When his hands turned black, they took the cuffs off and rubbed his legs and arms. One reason was to cause more pain, and another was to not leave any physical evidence. The perpetrators included director Gao Hongchang, brigade captain Jin Hongbo, brigade captain Yu Jiang, officer Jin Shan, No. 1 team leader Wang Hanyu, No. 2 team leader Su Xiaofeng, Zhang Liucheng, and another person from the education section. A total of eight people tortured Mr. Zhang. Especially Jin Shan, who usually picked an already-wounded area to hit.
Mr. Zhang was tortured eleven times in the "special treatment room." There is an around the clock surveillance camera in the torture room. Yang Ying and Liang Liang took turns standing guard. They told him, "The officials are treating you special. They said as long as there is no visible injury, it is okay if you die here. In another words, you can be tortured to death as long as there is no evidence." They forced him to stay awake for five days and five nights and tortured him on and off for two weeks.
4. Persecution in Daily Life
Not only did the guards torture Mr. Zhang physically, they also persecuted him in his daily life. They did not allow him to eat in the cafeteria. He was given bread made of cornmeal every day. During the days when the police were not torturing him, he was handcuffed to the death bed. His mouth was forced open with a force-feeding device. Headphones were put over his ears, and he was forced to listen to words slandering Falun Dafa and Teacher at the loudest setting. He was not allowed to sleep.
For those practitioners who had been "transformed," the guards did not loosen their grip. When the guards saw them not conforming by the slightest bit to their standards, they persecuted these practitioners both physically and mentally.
5. Persecution Suffered by Other Practitioners at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp
In March 2008, Mr. Chen Kaiqu, who has a Masters degree from the Chinese Academy of Science, was detained at the No. 2 Brigade, and was shocked with electric batons on his neck and face. His face was severely disfigured.
On April 2, Mr. Sun Shuchen did not want to answer questions that slandered Falun Dafa on a test. He was put in the "special treatment room" and hung up on the bed frame. Several guards slapped his face over a dozen times. Later, the captain on duty tied him up in the torture room. The entire floor could hear the noises from the electric batons and Mr. Sun's screams from the torture.
June 16, Mr. Zhao Yu refused to read the twenty regulations for Falun Dafa practitioners,so the guards tortured him for over two hours. Mr. Zhao's screams and the sounds of the guards torturing him could be heard by many other prisoners.
July 13, Mr. Chen Yan from Helongjiang Province refused to swear that he was "breaking away" from Falun Gong. He was tortured with the "big hang-up" method. Another practitioner, Mr. Li Laifang, was locked in Yu Jiang's office. Eleven guards tortured him. The third time they stretched him on the death bed, he vomited until there was nothing left in his stomach.
