(Minghui.org) An 84-year-old woman in Jiangbei District, Chongqing was recently indicted for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Before her retirement, Ms. Zhang Xingchao was the vice chairperson of the Standing Committee of the People’s Congress of Wofo Town, Tongnan District, Chongqing. She wrote a letter to the secretary of Yubei District Political and Legal Affairs Committee last year upon reading news about his participation in the persecution of local Falun Gong practitioners. For her own safety, she dropped off the letter at the Datong Street Post Office in Yuzhong District.
The post office intercepted the letter and turned it over to the Daomenkou Police Station in Yuzhong District. The police pored over surveillance videos and determined that Ms. Zhang had dropped off the letter. They then turned over the case to Yubei District because the intended recipient of the letter was in that district.
More than twenty agents from Yubei District Domestic Security Office and police stations under its supervision broke into Ms. Zhang’s home a bit past 8 a.m. on July 8, 2022. They asked if she had mailed the letter and threatened her son, saying that his son would be affected if Ms. Zhang kept practicing Falun Gong. They confiscated her Falun Gong books and had people stake outside her home to monitor her. The police also later harassed her and her son on the phone multiple times.
The police arrived in three cruisers and harassed Ms. Zhang at home on September 10, 2022 (Mid-Autumn Festival) and threatened to escalate her case into a major one.
She received a notice from Jiulongpo District Procuratorate on June 16, 2023 saying that she had been indicted.
All of the districts mentioned above are among the 26 districts in Chongqing.
Past Persecution
Ms. Zhang used to suffer from slipped disc, pyelonephritis (bacterial infection causing inflammation of the kidneys), hypotension (abnormally low blood pressure), anemia, and rheumatoid arthritis. She had to take pills all year round, but nothing helped much. All her symptoms disappeared, however, shortly after she took up Falun Gong on January 12, 1997. As such, she never wavered in her faith after the persecution began in 1999.
Prior to her latest persecution episode, she was arrested multiple times and given one year of forced labor following one of the arrests.
Ms. Zhang and two other female practitioners decided to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in December 1999, but agents from the Railway Police Station arrested them before they were able to make the trip. The police held them for more than ten hours before taking them to Chongqing Railway Station, where agents from Tongnan District Domestic Security Office awaited them with handcuffs.
The police confiscated from Ms. Zhang a Falun Gong book and more than 1,000 yuan in cash. That night, the police intentionally kept the three women in a male inmates’ cell. The next morning they were transferred to Tongnan District Detention Center. Each practitioner had one inmate watch her around the clock and was ordered to write statements to renounce her faith in Falun Gong.
Ms. Zhang was released on a 4,000-yuan bail one month later. She was ordered to report to the police on a regular basis and seek permission if she wanted to step outside her house.
The police arrested Ms. Zhang again in February 2000 and held her at a detention center for more than four months.
Ms. Zhang managed to travel to Beijing on July 1, 2000, to appeal for Falun Gong. She was arrested on Tiananmen Square. The police punched and kicked her before taking her to the Tiananmen Police Station. She was transferred to Daxing District Police Department in Beijing that afternoon. The police moved her again in the middle of the night, driving her to a police station more than 60 miles away.
In the next few days, officers at the far-flung police station beat and cursed at Ms. Zhang every day, attempting to force her to reveal her name and address. She refused to comply and was later taken to Daxing District Detention Center, where every practitioner who refused to disclose their names had their blood forcibly drawn. She learned later that the blood draws were to determine whether they would be good donors in the communist regime’s horrendous organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.
On July 16, 2000, all the practitioners who refused to reveal their names were transferred to different facilities in Tianjin. Ms. Zhang was taken to Wuqing County Detention Center, where the guards managed to find out her name and address. On July 23, 2000, Chongqing Police Department’s Liaison Office in Beijing picked her up and took her back to Chongqing two days later. She was held in a detention center for more than one month before being transferred to Chongqing Women’s Labor Camp, where she was held for one year and one month.
In the labor camp, Ms. Zhang was forced to walk in a military posture or sit on a small stool (10 cm in height) with her hands on her lap every day. If her walking or sitting position deviated a bit from the guards’ standards, she’d be beaten or verbally abused by the two inmates assigned to watch her. They sometimes reported her to the guards, who then imposed harsher punishments on her.
The long-term sitting on the small stool caused her buttocks to fester and ooze pus. The pain was unbearable.
The guards also forced Ms. Zhang to read or watch materials slandering Falun Gong and write “thought reports.” She was denied family visits because she refused to give up her belief.
The guards had her work without pay as well. She was deprived of sleep and threatened with term extension when she failed to finish her work quota.
Ms. Zhang was set to be released in August 2001, but the Tongnan District 610 Office threatened to take her to a brainwashing center if she still refused to renounce her faith. At the time, her husband was gravely ill, and her seven-month-old grandson needed her to take care of him (his parents couldn’t afford professional childcare). Under such a circumstance, Ms. Zhang wrote a statement to renounce her faith against her will. Only then was she released.
Ms. Zhang was arrested another time in October 2003, while putting up Falun Gong informational materials. Agents from the Yuhua Village Police Station interrogated her with torture. They released her upon failing to gather incriminating evidence against her.
The same police station arrested Ms. Zhang again in 2004 after she was reported for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. The police interrogated her for almost seven hours straight. She refused to answer their questions. They then summoned her son to the police station and threatened to detain her. Due to lack of evidence, however, the police ended up giving her a warning instead of administrative detention. They harassed her son at his workplace three days later and ordered his supervisor to terminate him if he failed to “discipline” his mother (preventing her from raising awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong).
On February 12, 2010 (two days before the Chinese New Year), Ms. Zhang was followed by a plainclothes officer, who later arrested her and took her to Daxing Village Police Station. He interrogated her for several hours and verbally abused her when she refused to answer his questions. He then released her, only to keep monitoring her.
Ms. Zhang’s husband was traumatized by her repeated arrests and harassment. A once healthy man, he developed diabetes and heart disease and was unable to care for himself.
Jiulongpo District Procuratorate:Address: No. 2 Hongshi Avenue, Jiulongpo District, Chongqing, Zip Code: 400039Tel.: +86-23-8906 ext. 2001
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