(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhang Ping’s family was finally allowed to visit her for the first time seven months after she was admitted to prison for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Zhang, a 55-year-old resident of Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, was arrested on May 9, 2022 and sentenced to five years with a 20,000-yuan fine on April 7, 2023. Her appeal was rejected on November 13, 2023 and she was transferred from the Lanzhou City First Detention Center to the Gansu Province Women’s Prison at the end of January 2024.
Her son, who lives in a different province, traveled a long distance to the prison in March 2024 to visit her, but was turned away. The prison authorities said his mother was denied family visits because she refused to renounce Falun Gong. Her son was also barred from sending in clothes or making deposits into her commissary account.
Ms. Zhang was allowed a phone call with her son in June 2024. The call was cut off in less than ten minutes. Her son was then finally allowed to see her in mid-August of 2024. He noted that his mother had become emaciated. Ms. Zhang said she was not given enough food to eat and had lost about ten pounds since her prison admission. The money that her son was finally allowed to send in was tightly controlled by the guards, who limited her purchase of daily necessities.
The guards ended the visit after ten minutes and said that Ms. Zhang was still under strict management, which meant many of her rights as a prisoner were revoked. Her son was not told when the strict management phase would end.
An insider later revealed the torture that Ms. Zhang suffered while still held at the Lanzhou City First Detention Center before her prison transfer. She did the Falun Gong exercises on the night of May 16, 2022 and instructor Wang Yan put her in a torture dubbed “back cuffing,” with one of her hands twisted behind her back to be cuffed together with the other hand pulled over her shoulder in the front. She was cuffed like that for 20 days, during which time the guards did not even allow others to help her use the restroom.
The detention center guards moved Ms. Zhang from Team 11 to Team 13 on June 8, 2022. Team head Zhu Meiting ordered her to do strenuous military drill type physical exercises every day and stand on guard two times a day (each time for two hours). Her legs became swollen as a result, and Zhu threatened to put her under the “back cuffing” torture again. Her hair soon turned gray.
Prior to her latest five-year sentence, Ms. Zhang served another five years in prison also for her faith. She was brutally tortured during her first five-year sentence and not allowed to return to work after she was released on April 22, 2010. Li Xiaoan, general manager of Hualong Securities, cited her prison sentence for her firing.
In addition to her first prison sentence, Ms. Zhang has also been arrested on numerous other occasions for practicing Falun Gong. Her mother, Ms. Long Lianqiu, who also took up Falun Gong in 1998, was arrested several times as well. Following her arrest in October 2002, Ms. Long was taken to a brainwashing center and forced to write statements to renounce Falun Gong. She then had a stroke and was hospitalized for more than 40 days. She was still paralyzed in one side of her body after she was discharged from the hospital. Her symptoms improved significantly after she resumed practicing Falun Gong and she was even able to take care of her self again. Yet her husband feared further persecution and threatened to divorce her if she did not stop practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Long couldn’t cope and died on September 11, 2005.
For more information about the persecution of Ms. Long and Ms. Zhang, see the following reports.
54-Year-Old Gansu Woman Given Second 5-Year Prison Term for Her Faith in Falun Gong
Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Zhang Ping from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province
Two Practitioners Sentenced to Long Terms in Gansu Province Women's Prison