(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhang Lichun of Yushu City, Jilin Province, took up Falun Gong in May 1999 at the recommendation of a relative. Her husband and other family members were amazed that the ancient spiritual discipline quickly transformed this hot-tempered woman into a calm and considerate person.
Only two months after Ms. Zhang began to practice Falun Gong, the Chinese communist regime ordered a nationwide campaign and filled the airwaves with hate propaganda slandering Falun Gong around the clock.
To speak up for Falun Gong, Ms. Zhang went to Beijing in the summer of 2000 and unfurled a banner at Tiananmen Square. As soon as she shouted “Falun Dafa is good,” a group of officers surrounded her, beat and kicked her. She kept shouting. Two officers held her arms while another one punched her face. Her mouth immediately swelled. The police dragged her into a police car and took her to the Tiananmen Square Police Station. They ordered her to kneel down and demanded to know where she came from. She refused to comply or answer their questions.
Ms. Zhang was then taken to an unknown detention facility, where many other Falun Gong practitioners were detained. She and three other practitioners, including two women and a man, were transferred to the Dongcheng District Detention Center that evening.
The guards interrogated Ms. Zhang every day. One guard blamed her for abandoning her family and child. They said that as soon as she revealed her name, they would release her. Ms. Zhang argued that it’s because the authorities detained her there that she couldn’t return home to care for her family. “Even if I tell you where I came from, will you open the door and let me go?” They said, “We absolutely can not do that.” “Then you should stop questioning me,” Ms. Zhang said.
During the detention, Ms. Zhang witnessed the persecution of many other practitioners. She recalled that a practitioner from Hunan Province was held in a dark room and shocked with electric batons all night. That practitioner couldn’t bear the pain and hit her head against the wall. Only then did the guards stop.
Another practitioner named Chen Jianli (gender unknown) was arrested on the eve of the 2000 Chinese New Year and was detained there for more than six months.
Ms. Zhang Xiaojie of Beijing was also detained there. Because she tried to stop the guards from beating other practitioners, guard Cheng Mei took her to the interrogation room and inserted electric needles into her, using the highest voltage to shock her. After the torture session, she was unable to lift her feet or walk on her own. Even when she was given a labor camp term a month later, she still had an unsteady gait. Guard Cheng pretended to care for her and asked why she hadn’t recovered.
After three months of detention, Ms. Zhang Lichun revealed her name and address to the guards. The next morning, she and a male practitioner from Dehui City, also in Jilin Province, were sent to the Jilin Province Liaison Office in Beijing. They were only given at most two meals every day. The male practitioner was picked up by his local police three days later. A female practitioner was sent over and her body was covered with blisters from electric shocks.
Ten days later Ms. Zhang was picked up by officer Zhou Xianguo and two Domestic Security Division agents. The police handcuffed her. After an overnight train ride, they arrived in Yushu and took Ms. Zhang to a local detention center.
Days later, the police took Ms. Zhang’s husband, nine-year-old daughter, mother and mother-in-law in their 70s to the detention center to see her. Her daughter looked at her with tears in her eyes. Her husband also tried to persuade her to give up Falun Gong. She remained firm in her faith and refused to give in to the communist regime’s tyranny. Two weeks later, she was transferred to the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp to serve a one-year term.
Guards Sun Jia and Jin Lihua ordered Ms. Zhang to renounce Falun Gong and they beat her in an attempt to make her submit. After a beating session one day, they threatened to shock her with electric batons. A few days later, the guards arranged a group of former practitioners to work on Ms. Zhang. From 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., they read books slandering Falun Gong to her, non-stop. Even regular inmates in the cell became annoyed and they applauded Ms. Zhang when she grabbed the books and tore them up. Because Ms. Zhang still refused to give up Falun Gong after over 20 days of brainwashing, the guards threatened to extend her term.
In addition to the brainwashing, the guards also arranged two inmates to monitor Ms. Zhang around the clock. They followed her wherever she went, including when she used the restroom, ate or slept. She wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone or even look at them.
Feeling depressed and missing her daughter, Ms. Zhang began to have a severe toothache, which caused her tremendous difficulty when she tried to eat. To make things worse, the guards only gave her a few minutes to eat each meal and she was never able to finish the food on time.
The guards later forced Ms. Zhang to do manual labor without pay, from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m. with no breaks.
Ms. Zhang’s persecution left her family in deep agony. Her mother-in-law wept every day. Her husband was also in low spirits.
The day of Ms. Zhang’s scheduled release, her family arrived at the labor camp very early in the morning to pick her up. But the labor camp refused to release her right away and insisted that she be picked up by the local 610 Office agents. Ms. Zhang’s husband and father-in-law pleaded with the police and the labor camp and finally got her released in the early afternoon.
Ms. Zhang returned to work days later. Yet the police and residential committee staff members kept coming back to harass her, which always terrified her family, especially her mother-in-law who was living with them.
Even after she was released, Ms. Zhang’s toothache persisted and it caused her great pain when she ate. For the next seven years, she had to remove her teeth one by one. By 2011, when she was still relatively young, she no longer had any teeth left.
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