(Minghui.org) Mr. Zhang Yutang was sentenced to 5.5 years in prison on February 13, 2015 for his faith to Falun Gong, a mind body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime for 22 years. After he finished serving time in 2019, the local authorities installed a surveillance system around his apartment and often harassed him and his family.

Mr. Zhang, around 68, was a carpenter in Tiexi Village, Mishan City, Heilongjiang Province. He started practicing Falun Gong in September 1998. After the Chinese communist regime started the persecution of Falun Gong, Mr. Zhang was given two years of forced labor in December 1999, was sentenced to three years in prison in April 2002, and was sent to a brainwashing center on August 12, 2011 for requesting the release of his nephew’s wife.

Mr. Zhang Yutang

The following is Mr. Zhang’s experience of being arrested again in April 2014 and sentenced to 5.5 years. He went through six hearings, and at the last hearing he appeared to be in the state of confusion ten minutes after drinking a glass of water given to him by the presiding judge, Ji Ming.

Arrested by Police Breaking Into Mr. Zhang’s Rental Apartment

Police officer Li Xuejun, from the Mudanjinang City Domestic Security Office, along with a plainclothes officer went to Mr. Zhang’s apartment building on April 1, 2014. They turned off his power, hid in the dark, and when Mr. Zhang came downstairs to check the situation, they sneaked into his apartment.

When Mr. Zhang returned home, he was surprised to find two strangers standing there. “Who are you? Why did you enter my home secretly?” he asked. Li replied that they came to search his home according to the law, but refused to show Mr. Zhang a search warrant or his police identification.

When Li found a device which could send group messages, he called in more than 20 officers. They held Mr. Zhang tightly and rummaged through his place. Mr. Zhang’s one desktop computer, two laptops, two hard drives, 1,592 yuan in cash, and six cell phones were confiscated.

The police first took Mr. Zhang and his wife to the Mudanjiang City Police Department and then transferred them to the city detention center on the second day. Meanwhile, two police officers stayed at his home, attempting to arrest his son when he returned home.

The police interrogated Mr. Zhang’s wife several times in the detention center, but she refused to provide any of the information they wanted. She was released on April 30, after one month of detention.

What happened to Mr. Zhang was much worse. He was slapped in the face 16 times by an officer named Wang Minquan. Mr. Zhang went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was force-fed three times. The guards cuffed his arms and feet to water pipes in a standing spread-eagle position, forcing his body against the wall.

During this time, the police repeatedly attempted to force Mr. Zhang to reveal the source of the device that he used to send text messages about Falun Gong. They hit him on the head, threw him to the ground, and forced him to press his fingerprints on the case documents they had prepared, which were then submitted to the Procuratorate as prosecution evidence.

Secret Trial at the Detention Center

Mr. Zhang was indicted in late May 2014. He asked the guards to request his family to hire a lawyer for him, but the guards never did so.

One month later, Mr. Zhang was secretly tried by the Aimin District Court in a small conference room at the detention center. When he questioned why his family didn’t come for the hearing, presiding judge Zhang Ying claimed that neither his family nor his lawyer ever came to the court for the relevant procedures. Mr. Zhang refused to attend the hearing and tried to leave the room, only to be forcibly taken back by the bailiff to finish the 30-minute hearing.

After receiving the 5.5-year prison sentence on July 7, 2014, Mr. Zhang filed an appeal with the Mudanjiang City Intermediate Court.

The higher court revoked the original verdict, returned the case to the first instance court, and ordered a retrial.

Judge Denies Lawyer’s Access to Case Files

Before the retrial, the court denied the lawyer access to the case documents, which prevented the lawyer from effectively defending Mr. Zhang and caused the lawyer to be expelled from the courtroom.

Mr. Zhang later hired a new lawyer to represent him. When the new lawyer traveled all the way to Mudanjiang City to review his case documents, a judge named Jiang Bingbing made a multitude of excuses to block him. Under the lawyer’s strong request, Jiang reluctantly gave part of the files, but many critical documents were not included.

Slurred Speech and Severe Headache After a Drink of Water

The judge held five hearings in the retrial. In between the hearings, Mr. Zhang suffered from serious health problems and was hospitalized several times. He was diagnosed with cerebral infarction and coronary heart disease. He had to attend the hearings in a wheelchair along with a doctor.

Before the first hearing in the retrial, when judge Zhang Ying of the original trial met Mr. Zhang in the hospital, she said to him, “I was wrong the first time, please do not take it to heart.” She also promised not to get involved in Falun Gong cases anymore.

Despite Mr. Zhang’s weak condition, presiding judge Ji Ming still forced him to appear in court. When he was reading his defense statement, judge Ji (who received a slip from a bailiff earlier) ordered someone to give him a bottle of water. Ten minutes later, Mr. Zhang’s speech became slurred. He held his head in his hands in agony. He told the judge that his head hurt terribly and that his hands and feet felt stiff.

Judge Ji summoned a medic, who gave Mr. Zhang a cursory exam and declared that he was fit to continue. “Are you trying to kill me!” Mr. Zhang said, writhing in pain. “My client is obviously not fit to stand trial right now. Do you care about his life at all?” Mr. Zhang’s lawyer protested, but to no avail.

Outraged, Mr. Zhang’s wife stood up in the audience and complained loudly about how badly her husband was being treated. As she was dragged out of the courtroom by several court marshals, Mr. Zhang showed no emotion and appeared not to see or hear anything throughout the commotion.

Tortured in Mudanjiang Prison

After the fifth hearing, the judge handed down the same 5.5-year sentence again. Mr. Zhang filed another appeal with the intermediate court. When judge Gao Yuxi of the higher court came to the hospital and asked Mr. Zhang about the reasons for his appeal, Mr. Zhang told him that Falun Gong is a righteous practice and he didn’t do anything wrong in practicing his faith, which has never been criminalized in China in the first place. While Gao said he understood the fact and would take care of it, the result was that he rejected Mr. Zhang’s appeal.

Mr. Zhang was taken to Mudanjiang City Prison on August 26, 2015. He shared a giant bed with dozens of inmates and each one had to sleep on their side, with one person’s head next to others’ feet. If anyone got up to use the restroom, there was no room for him when he came back.

Because Mr. Zhang couldn’t memorize the prison rules or answer the roll call, he was often beaten and abused. The guards also withheld the clothes and daily necessities his family sent him, because he didn’t offer any gifts to the guards.

Brutally Beaten in Tailai Prison

Mr. Zhang was transferred to Tailai Prison on November 13, 2015, and he was made to sleep on the tile floor. Because he refused to memorize the prison rules and didn’t write the statement to renounce his faith, guard Dong Xin instructed two inmates to deprive him of sleep.

In a delirious state after not sleeping for two days, Mr. Zhang signed the renouncing statement. After he later came to his senses, he wrote a solemn declaration to void the statement.

Due to his poor health, Mr. Zhang was transferred to the ward for ailing inmates. In early August 2018, he was transferred to Qiqihar City Prison and all of his hand-copied Falun Gong teachings were confiscated.

Ding Chao, chief of No. 5 Division, called Mr. Zhang to an office without surveillance cameras on October 30, 2018, and asked him why he didn’t pay for the medical insurance. Mr. Zhang replied that it should be voluntary whether he bought the insurance or not. Ding then slapped him in the face and hit him on the chest. He also kicked Mr. Zhang’s buttocks so hard that he suffered prolapse.

Torture illustration: Brutal beating

Ding stopped and asked, “Are you going to pay?” Mr. Zhang firmly said no. He then hit him again. After three times, when he tried to hit again, Mr. Zhang suddenly pulled open the door and shouted, “The prison guard beat me! The prison guard beat me!” When prison director Ren Shaozhong heard it, he instructed Ding that they would prohibit Mr. Zhang from buying daily necessities for two months.

Another time when Ding asked Mr. Zhang why he refused to do the roll call, Mr. Zhang replied that it was because he was innocent and was not a criminal. Ding said his attitude was bad and beat him with an electric baton.

Mr. Zhang and some other practitioners were transferred back to Tailai Prison one year later in August 2019. On September 11, 2019, after the guards found a piece of paper written with information about Falun Gong, they held Mr. Zhang in solitary confinement until his term expired on October 1, 2019. The guards also blamed Mr. Zhang in front of other inmates that he didn’t love the communist regime or the country.

Continuous Harassment

After Mr. Zhang was released, the local police installed a surveillance camera on each side of the entrance of Mr. Zhang’s apartment building, and another one facing the front entrance.

The local authorities never stopped their attempts to force Mr. Zhang to renounce his faith. On December 11, 2020, Han Xianji, the secretary of Mishan Town, went to Mr. Zhang’s home and attempted to force him to write a statement to renounce his faith.

Mr. Zhang asked, “Which one do you think is better, the one that follows the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, or the one that follows lies, cruelty, and violence?” Han didn’t answer but threatened, “If you don’t write it, I will report you to the police. You’ll see how they will treat you.”

About a week later on December 17, seven police officers came to knock Mr. Zhang’s door in the afternoon, but no one was at home. The next night at around 9:30 p.m., another group of police officers came. Mr. Zhang’s son, Mr. Zhang Chuanfu, opened the door and ask what they were doing. One of the police officers took out a small book and waved in front of the son’s face, saying it was their police ID, but without letting him take a closer look. Because Mr. Zhang was not at home, they left.

A few days later, on December 21 at about 5:20 p.m., when the younger Mr. Zhang returned home, the police stopped him, grabbed the key, opened the door, and rummaged around. They took away six Falun Gong books, two cellphones, and two speakers. The items were about 2,000 yuan in value. The same night, police arrested the elder Mr. Zhang and took him to the police station for interrogation. He refused to answer any questions. The police detained him for ten days. During that time, two police officers went into his home again and it’s not clear what they took away.

Mr. Zhang’s daughter was also harassed and ordered to sign prepared statements renouncing Falun Gong on her parents’ behalf. She refused, but her husband was forced to comply.

Li Changxin, director of the Mishan City No. 4 Police Station, along with officer Xu Xiaoqiang, knocked on Mr. Zhang’s door again at 3:35 p.m. on May 19, 2021. They said they came to verify a few questions, such as whether the couple practiced Falun Gong and whether they had been arrested. Mr. Zhang replied, “We have not been arrested, but were wrongfully kidnapped by you. You are the ones committing crimes. You should go back to your office. Do not come to my home.” Mr. Zhang refused to open the door. Xu made a phone call and reported the situation. Shortly after, they left.

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