Woman Recounts Her One Year Ordeal in Jilin City Detention Center

(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhang Yuhua, 68, and her younger sister Ms. Zhang Yufeng, both residents of Jilin City, Jilin Province, went to a market on June 6, 2021 to tell people about the Chinese communist regime’s ongoing persecution of Falun Dafa. The police arrested the older Ms. Zhang from the market and her sister later from home. After a hearing by the Chuanying District Court, Ms. Zhang Yuhua was sentenced to one year in prison and her sister three years.

Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, is a spiritual discipline with meditative exercises that’s been persecuted in China since July 1999.

The following is Ms. Zhang Yuhua’s account of her arrest and one-year incarceration in the Jilin City Detention Center.

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I went to a market in Fengjiatun, Chuanying District on June 6, 2021 to hand out Falun Dafa amulets and tell people how brutal the persecution of Falun Dafa was. A woman approached me and returned the amulet that I had given her a bit earlier. Before I realized what was happening, two plainclothes officers rushed over and grabbed me. I shouted “Falun Dafa is good” in protest. People at the market started to gather around us.

The officers took me to a corner of the market, where there were fewer people. I continued to shout “Falun Dafa is good” and the crowd followed over. The police threw me to the ground and an officer sat on me. I warned them that they were committing a crime by treating a law-abiding citizen this way.

After a while, the crowd dissipated. The police forced me into a car and took me to Huangqi Police Station. One officer asked me where I lived. I refused to answer and told him that I had done nothing wrong in practicing Falun Dafa and trying to be a good person.

That officer later asked his colleagues what law should he use to charge me. One of them told him, “Don’t we use Criminal Law Article 300 [which stipulates that anyone using a cult organization to sabotage law enforcement should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law] on all Falun Gong practitioners?”

“You are making up charges. You are persecuting me without any legal basis. You are violating the law.” I said to them.

The officer took me to a township hospital for a health checkup before sending me to Jilin City Detention Center. As I refused to sign my name on the papers, he signed it for me.

The detention center guards searched me and threw my outfit away because it had a lot of mud on it. They did not provide me with anything to wear. I had my undershirt and underpants on until my family delivered clothes to me.

The living condition in the detention center was terrible. The cell was packed with detainees and we had to sleep on our sides. The tissue paper sold there was unreasonably expensive. The everyday meals consisted of corn bread and vegetable soup, which barely had any vegetables.

I later went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal incarceration. A guard asked me why, and I told him that I had committed no crime and should not be there. I wanted him to talk to his supervisor about my situation, and he told me that it would not change anything and there was nothing he could do to help me. Three days later, the guards started to force feed me, twice a day and each time by several inmates and three medical personnel.

In an attempt to force me to stop the hunger strike, the guards made other inmates sit still for a long period of time, in order to incite their hatred against me. One of them started to verbally abuse me. Another one pinched the inside of my thigh. Ten days later the inmates began to yell at me and asked me to stop the hunger strike. I realized this didn’t help alleviate the persecution, but would make them misunderstand me. I decided to stop the hunger strike.

The Chuanying District Court held a hearing of my case on October 20, 2021. The presiding judge, Li Zhongcheng, asked if I pleaded guilty. I asked him how I could possibly commit any crime by holding firm in my faith and being a good person. He said, “I’ll give you another chance. Do you plead guilty?” I maintained that I committed no crime. He hit the gavel and adjourned the hearing. Three months later on January 15, 2022, he announced the one-year sentence against me.

A few days before the guards were to transfer me to Jilin Province Women’s Prison, another wave of the pandemic hit Jilin and the entire city was locked down. They kept me in the detention center and I was released three months later when my term ended.

Li Zhongcheng, a judge in Chuanying District Court who sentenced Ms. Zhang to a year

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Zhang Fuhong (张福洪), director of Chuanying District CourtPu Haidong (蒲海东), deputy director of Chuanying District Court: [phone]Li Zhongcheng (李忠诚), judge of Chuanying District Court: [phone], [phone]Wang Hongjia (王宏家), deputy secretary of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee of Chuanying District: [phone]Zhang Qingshan (张青山), head of the 610 Office in Chuanying District: [phone]Zhu Baolin (朱宝林), director of Jilin City Detention Center: [phone]Cong Maolin (丛茂林), deputy director of Jilin City Detention Center: [phone]Guards in Jilin City Detention Center: Xin Huiying (辛惠颖), Chen Ruijia (陈瑞佳)Doctor in Jilin City Detention Center : Zhang Shaoqing (张少卿)

Related report:

Two Sisters in Their 60s Sentenced for Raising Awareness about the Persecution of Their Faith