On October 12, 1999, I went to Beijing to appeal to the central government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong. I was arrested and taken back to Huludao City, Liaoning Province, and sentenced to two years of forced labor.
On November 30, 1999, I was sent to the Huludao City Labor Camp. There, when I refused to read materials and watch video programs denouncing Falun Gong, I was forced to stand in the corridor, beaten, shocked with electric batons, and then forced to run outside in the cold.
On May 30, 2000, practitioners Mr. Chen Dewen, Mr. Su Hongtao, Mr. Wang Zhuo, Mr. Yao Yanhui, Mr. Wang Hongting, and I were taken to forced brainwashing session in the labor camp. The guards Zhang Fusheng and Tong Yongli, along with several criminal inmates forced us to read books denouncing Falun Gong. When we refused, Zhang Fusheng slapped and punched my face and chest repeatedly and beat the other practitioners. The guards punched our faces, necks and chests, knocked us down, pulled us up back up and started beating us all over again. They also forced us to kneel on a mop handle and punched and kicked us. One inmate stomped on my body and twisted the mop handle. I immediately felt extreme pain in my knees. In the following two months, because of damage to my knees I could not walk downstairs. At the same time, Tong Yongli shocked practitioners’ heads with an electric baton. I was dragged to a storage room where they forced me into a push-up position and beat me with a mop handle. After a long time they started to beat me brutally again. Then they forced me to kneel until 12:00 midnight. My left arm was in so much pain that I was unable to lift it over my shoulder. My head and my face were badly swollen, my chest was black and blue, and my lower back was seriously damaged. The skin inside my mouth was cut open and I was spitting blood continuously. In the following two months, 16 practitioners and I were forced to sit on a cement floor for 8 hours every day with both legs out straight, the waist straight and both hands placed on our knees. Our legs were swollen and we could not stand without pain.
On December 1, 2000, when we refused to listen to audio materials denouncing Falun Gong, the guards dragged us to a room to torture us. They shocked us with electric batons, slapped our faces with the soles of shoes, and whipped us with belts. Mr. Chen Dewen and I were taken to a separate room and shocked with electric batons. One guard shocked me on the neck, head, shoulders, and back with two electric batons. Another guard slapped my face with the sole of a shoe. After the beatings, I couldn't move my right shoulder or the upper right side of my body - my chest hurt so much that I could barely breath; I could not turn my neck; due to electric shock my left ear had a hole in it; and my ear, neck, and mouth were dripping yellowish fluid from the locations where I had been shocked with electric batons. Practitioner Zhao Lianxin's head was grossly swollen; his eyes were swollen to the point that they couldn’t open, and were dripping blood; and his lips were split into four pieces, and bleeding. The electric shock wounds on his body were dripping yellowish fluid. His face was unrecognizable. Similarly the heads of the other practitioners were swollen and their necks, ears, and mouths were dripping yellowish mucus. During the following four days, we were shocked and beaten continuously.
On November 28, 2001, 20 practitioners, started a hunger strike to protest the inhumane treatment. On November 30 the guards dragged us out one by one to shock and beat us. I was taken to the office and lost consciousness when a guard suddenly pushed me very hard to the ground. I needed six stitches on my head and was sent back to the cell. I was handcuffed to the bed and constantly watched by inmates.
On December 2, 2001, a guard instigated the inmates to force-feed me. One inmate pried my mouth open with bamboo chopsticks, while another two pinched my nose and force-fed me five times. The next morning I was handcuffed to a bed, a camp doctor inserted a tube into my stomach through my nose, and several inmates forced food into me. On December 7, 2001, the guards began to force-feed alcohol to me. I told them that I was allergic to alcohol but they didn’t stop. They forced beer into me once, and hard liquor twice. I developed small red spots all over my body. I was intolerably itchy and had difficulty breathing. Fifty days later I still had itchy spots on my body.
On December 28, 2001, the 30th day of my hunger strike, I was released, three months beyond my original two-year sentence. My vision was so badly damaged that I could not see things clearly. Even 50 days after my release my left shoulder and arm could not move freely. I had lower back pain, could not move normally, and could not carry any weight. I also had stomach pain and insomnia.
Follow up: After he was released, due to police harassment, Mr. Zhang was forced to leave home. In December 2002, he was arrested again in Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, and has been detained in the Jinzhou City Labor Camp since then.
