(Minghui.org) A Tangshan City, Hebei Province, resident was admitted to the Tianjin Women’s Prison on August 14, 2024, to serve a three-year term for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.

Ms. Zhang Maoxia was arrested on July 5, 2023, while visiting her daughter in Tianjin. She was sentenced to three years at an unknown date and transferred from the Binhai New Area Detention Center to Division Five of the Tianjin Women’s Prison on August 14, 2024. 

This is not the first time that Ms. Zhang has been targeted for her faith. She was previously jailed for five years between 2007 and 2012.

A Prior 5-Year Term

Ms. Zhang was arrested on October 3, 2007, and taken to the Zunhua City Detention Center. She refused to do hard labor and had her feet shackled on May 20, 2008. Ten days later, the guards handcuffed her when she still held firm to her faith. 

The Zunhua City Court sentenced Ms. Zhang to five years and she was admitted to the Hebei Province Women’s Prison around June 2008. 

Ms. Zhang went on a hunger strike in protest and was brutally force-fed and beaten. She was not allowed to sleep for long stretches of time and later forced to do hard labor. Ma Mei, head of Division Five, put her in solitary confinement at one point. She was hung up to a window frame with her feet barely touching the ground (see the image below).

Torture illustration: hung up to window frame

Ms. Zhang became extremely weak and almost lost the ability to take care of herself. Only then did Ma let her out of solitary confinement. She, however, was immediately forced to do hard labor afterward.

On February 1, 2009, Ms. Zhang and two other jailed Falun Gong practitioners refused to wear prisoners’ badges. Vice division head Wang Yanqing, together with guards Han Dong and Du Lingyan, cuffed the three practitioners to the metal gate of the division. They were later allowed to return to their cell. Instructor Gao Tong soon came to ask if they would agree to wear badges. They still said no and Wang directed the inmates to strip off their winter coats and open the window to freeze them.

Other forms of torture imposed on Ms. Zhang and other practitioners included beating, slapping in the face, stuffing mouths with dirty rags, pouring cold water all over, and not allowing to wear warm clothes in the winter. In order to instigate hatred towards Falun Gong practitioners, the guards also forbade the whole division from eating if some practitioners refused to renounce Falun Gong. 

In addition to corporal punishment, Ms. Zhang and other practitioners were also forced to study propaganda smearing Falun Gong and write thought reports every day. The guards instigated the inmates to secretly put in the practitioners’ shoes slips of paper with words slandering Falun Gong and its founder written on them. 

Ms. Zhang was released in October 2012.

Related Report:

Previously Jailed for Their Faith, Co-mothers-in-law Detained Again and Denied Family Visits