Ms. Zhang Yali, female, approximately 30, accountant at the No. 2 Oil Extraction plant of the Oil Exploration Bureau in Henan Province.

In June of 2000 Ms. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal against the persecution of Falun Gong and was arrested and detained in the Tiananmen Square Police Station. At the police station, police beat her and humiliated her by stripping her of her clothes in front of onlookers. Several days later, she was escorted back to Nanyang City, and detained in the Tanghe County Detention Center because of her belief in Falun Gong.

After Ms. Zhang was released from the Tanghe County Detention Center, she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong again. She was escorted back home by personnel from her work unit and was detained in her work unit. That summer, the head of her work unit continuously subjected Ms. Zhang to all kinds of torture, including making her stay in the scorching sun for a long time. Her husband was asked to coerce her to give up her belief in Falun Gong or he would be withheld from getting a promotion. Ms. Zhang was eventually forced to divorce her husband. Later, her work unit sent her to the brainwashing center for further torture. She escaped from the brainwashing center and had to live in hiding in her relative’s home to avoid further persecution. The leaders of her work unit together with Bai Guoyin, the chief of the Police Department of the oil extraction plant, and Zhang Zhenyi, the division supervisor in the National Security Bureau hunted Ms. Zhang down, abducted her and sent her to Tanghe County detention center again.

In May 2001, Ms. Zhang was transferred to the Shibalihe Female Forced Labor Camp of Zhengzhou City. While there, she staged hunger strikes several times as her only means of protest to the mistreatment she had received because of her belief in Falun Gong. The police tortured her with a method called “strait jacket[1]” torture, which is an extremely brutal torture method. They immobilized her in the strait jacket, tied up her legs, and hung her in the air from the ceiling. At the same time, they gagged her mouth with cloth, put headphones in her ears and continuously played psychological brainwashing messages slandering Falun Gong. People who suffer this torture quickly sustain broken arms, shoulders, wrists and elbows, and ripped tendons. Those who endure this torture for a long time have completely broken spines, and they die in agonizing pain. Her genital area was also beaten, leaving her painfully bruised and giving her difficulty urinating. Ms. Zhang died from the torture on June 4, 2003 at the labor camp.

type=Case, Death; type=Case, Women; type=Case, Torture; type=Labor Camp, Shibalihe Female Forced Labor Camp; location=Henan, Zhengzhou;