(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Lan Bing is 37 years old this year and is locked up in the Tilanqiao Prison in Shanghai, serving a heavy ten-year sentence. His wife Ms. Zhang Ying is 35 years old. She was sentenced to two and a half-years of forced labor, but managed to get out of the Shanghai Women's Forced Labor Camp with the power of righteous thoughts. She is now living in the Dachang District, Baoshan, Shanghai. The day she left the forced labor camp she refused to sign the release notice. She always said no to anything the evil requested. This couple started practicing Falun Gong in 1994. From then on, they lived a very happy life.

In July 1999, when the persecution of Falun Gong began, the couple lived in the Putuo District. Over a two week period, the Putuo District Police Department officials repeatedly summoned Mr. Lan to come to the Police Department. Later the local police officers often went to the couple's home. The person at the entrance to their complex and also the person at the garage tailed them every day. Because of this loss of their freedom, the couple left their home and lived a homeless life. They couldn't contact other family members in a normal way, either. Since 2000, in order to let more people know the truth about Falun Dafa and to avoid being captured and persecuted, they have constantly changed their living arrangements.

In 2000, the police looked everywhere for Mr. Lan and his wife. They also dispatched secret agents to locate them, but failed to find them. They then tried to separate the Dafa practitioners. In 2001, the police issued a warrant for their arrest on the Internet. With their firm belief in Dafa, and Master's protection, Mr. Lan and other practitioners headed off one danger after another.

In August 2001, police officers from the Xuhui District Police Department arrested Mr. Lan on his way to deliver truth clarification materials. During the interrogation the authorities didn't allow him to sleep; they used an intense sunlamp to irradiate him for a long time and didn't allow him to rest. That lasted seven days and nights. Finally, in a state of unconsciousness, Mr. Lan was sent to Xuhui District Detention Center. On arrival they put him onto the concrete floor. Mr. Lan regained consciousness after lying on the concrete floor for three days. Before long he was sent to the Tilanqiao Hospital in Shanghai because his legs were swollen and he was unable to stand. The symptoms were diagnosed as viral rheumatism. During the four months of hospitalization in the Tilanqiao Hospital, the hospital sent out two urgent notices that he was close to death. That whole time, however, his family knew nothing. We have heard that his health is still not good and that his blood pressure is very high, but the enforcers still make him do hard labor.

Not long after Mr. Lan was arrested, Ms. Zhang was arrested at the truth material production center at Minhang, Shanghai. Later she was locked up in the Xinzhuang Police Station of the Minhang District Police Department. The perpetrators used all sorts of methods to persecute Ms. Zhang and also brutally beat her. They pushed her face onto the floor and handcuffed her behind her back. With Ms. Zhang's face on the floor, they put their knees on her back and pressed her hard. Then, they tortured her by raising the handcuffs toward her shoulders. If she didn't respond they then slapped her in the face. They also tore out clumps of her hair and whipped her with a belt. Because Ms. Zhang refused to have her photograph taken, the perpetrators again pushed her onto the floor. Some of them bound her feet together, while others bound her arms together; her body was also bound.

They then grabbed her and threw her against the wall. Ms. Zhang's hands became swollen from being handcuffed and, at the same time, she had spasms. The perpetrators themselves said that if they continued to handcuff Ms. Zhang, her hands would become disabled, so they removed the handcuffs and constantly rubbed her hands. When Ms. Zhang's hands seemed a little better they handcuffed her again, as she still refused to cooperate. Yang Duanhua and Wang Chenhai from the Politics and Security Section of the Minhang District Police Department were the individuals who personally tortured Ms. Zhang. Among those who hit her was the one who had interrogated Mr. Lan Bing. When they came into the room and found that Ms. Zhang didn't say anything, they then slapped her in the face. Ms. Zhang kept sending forth righteous thoughts. After a continuous seven days of torture and interrogation, Ms. Zhang was sent to the Minhang Detention Center.

The local Xinzhuang Police Station personnel and people from the Politics and Security Section in the Minhang District Police Department confiscated their personal property. Ms. Zhang refused to sign the list of confiscated items.

After being transferred to the detention center, because she refused to obey the prison rules, such as wearing the prison uniform and reciting the prison rules, the head of the prison grabbed Ms. Zhang's hair, dragged her into the cell, hung her up and handcuffed her to the window's iron grating. She shouted, "Falun Dafa is good!" Her voice was very loud and clear and could be heard all over the whole floor. She was hung up this way at all times and wasn't taken down even when she wanted to use the toilet.

To protest the persecution, Ms. Zhang started a hunger strike but was force-fed. Several days later the authorities only agreed to let her down to use the toilet. Thus she was hung up all through the day and even during sleep time. Ms. Zhang had to sleep in a sitting position with her hands cuffed and hung up. Two weeks passed. Because she wouldn't admit that she was wrong, she was still hung up for a long time. On the fifteenth day when the enforcers questioned her again she still didn't compromise. The officials then ordered, "Don't put her down in the evening." Thus Ms. Zhang had to sleep while standing. After suffering these tortures, Ms. Zhang gradually became weak. Her spirit, however, moved the persons who were locked up with her. The last two days when she was hung up, some people cried. But she still clarified the truth about Dafa to the people around her.

Seventeen days later a police officer took her down. However, he didn't take off her handcuffs, because he was afraid she would do the Falun Gong exercises; therefore, during the two-months detention period Ms. Zhang was always handcuffed. During this time she gave her money to those who had no money. Some of the police officers and prisoners were moved by what she did. Some people even started practicing Falun Gong through her influence.

In November 2001 Ms. Zhang was sent to the Shanghai Women's Forced Labor Camp and was locked up in the No. 1 Team. She said to team head Yao that forced labor was to reform bad persons while Dafa practitioners were innocent and were wronged. She explained that that was why she didn't go to the workshop and didn't participate in forced labor. She didn't obey any of the Labor Camp's orders. On the third day the forced labor camp authorities wanted to hang her up with her hands bound back; this torture method is called "flying an airplane with hands twisted backward," making her body look like the shape of an airplane. She didn't cooperate with them, thus they called more than ten musclemen to handle her. The airplane-shaped back handcuffs hurt her hands tremendously. Since in this torture method the feet barely touch the floor, in mere seconds the hands become bruised. Although Ms. Zhang felt severe pain she didn't cry. Because she realized that she is a Dafa practitioner and shouldn't let them persecute her this way, she made a decision that she must turn over. She knew that when her hands lost feeling after a period of time, it would be impossible for her to turn over. Later, to the sound of cracking bones she turned over. She didn't know how she was able to make the effort. The police officers didn't know what to do, although they monitored the process through their monitoring device.

Ms. Zhang was then transferred to the No. 5 Team of the Intensive Transformation Division. Because she refused to say a word there, the perpetrators locked her up with former Dafa practitioners whom she had previously known, intending to make her talk. When she saw that the former fellow practitioners were "reformed" at that stage she felt very sad.

No matter what means the evildoers used, she paid no attention to them. She didn't talk, didn't attend their required study sessions, didn't read the slanderous materials and didn't attend any discussion. All the perpetrators managed to do was punish her physically. They made her sit for a long time and later kept her standing for a long time.

Eventually, for no reason, they placed her in solitary confinement. It was severe winter at the time. Every day, they forced her to get up before 5:00 a.m. and go to bed at 12:00 p.m. or later and only gave her a little food. She felt so cold that she trembled. Even having clothes on during sleep didn't help.

She was also forced to sit or stand in the irradiating heat of a sunlamp the whole day. She still didn't say anything and instead smiled. During an inspection the head of the forced labor camp asked the head of the No.5 Team if she was protesting in silence. The team head replied, "She is different from others. She doesn't talk to anybody." Because she saw through the perpetrators' ploy to use of the false realizations of some practitioners to reform other practitioners, she knew they tortured her so severely just to force her to share with those practitioners who went astray.

After over one month's confinement, when the guards asked her about her thoughts she immediately recalled Master's "True Nature Revealed" (Essentials for Further Advancement II). She thus said in a hoarse voice (she had a hoarse voice because of the long term torture), "I will follow Master forever!" The evildoers laughed at her, but they knew that they had no way to reform her. They then considered forcing her to do heavy labor to break her spirit.

A few days later Ms. Zhang was transferred to No. 2 Division, a strictly monitored team in the forced labor camp where drug addicts were confined. The prisoners in the team performed heavy labor. They got up at about 5:00 a.m. and stopped work at 10:00 p.m. every day. Sometimes they were forced to work the whole night. Ms. Zhang never admitted that she was wrong, so the treatment she received was the worst. She didn't do the labor assignment, didn't obey the rules, didn't acknowledge the drug addicts' guard, and didn't write reports; thus she was often punished.

Three people were in charge of the No. 2 Division: Wang, Ge and Mao. Wang and Ge were particularly vicious. The team head Shen Qiaohong, was personally in charge of Ms. Zhang. The team head Shen was quite ruthless. During the two years in a drug-user labor camp, Ms. Zhang went on hunger strikes on two different occasions. Because she didn't follow the camp regulations and was against the unfair treatment, she suffered the torture of "Hanging Up in the Air." Wang and Shen Qiaohong oppressed her intentionally. They used all kinds of methods to torture her. They gave her leftovers for food (leftovers from the day before, or leftovers of the staff) for a long period of time. Even after six days on of one of her hunger strikes, they still made her do heavy labor. When she refused to comply with the head count, they punished her by forcing her to stand for a long time.

Once, when they made up an excuse of her not following rules, Wang and Shen Qiaohong ordered her to be subjected to "Hanging Up in the Air" using a belt. Several convicted criminals dragged her from the workroom on the second floor to the fifth floor. First, they handcuffed her backward on a metal window frame. They waited until Ms. Zhang lost all of the energy she had to defend herself and then used a belt to hang her up in the air. After being handcuffed, Ms. Zhang went on a hunger strike. Shen Qiaohong put an electric baton on Ms. Zhang's mouth and threatened her. Ms. Zhang didn't feel anything, but the perpetrators were afraid of causing her death. They ordered the convicted criminals to force water down her throat. She was hung very high. Her feet were just above the ground. They didn't even let her down when she needed to use the toilet.

To make her give in, they used more severe torture methods. At the same time, they knew that Ms. Zhang was very persistent. The more they tortured her, the more she resisted with all her strength. They knew that she knew her husband was hospitalized at the Tilanqiao Hospital. They ordered a policewoman familiar with psychology to talk to her at night and give her a massage on her body once in a while. (Note: the perpetrators could not reform her using torture methods and decided to be hypocritical as an alternative "soft" reform method together with the torture.)

They hung her from 5 a.m. in the morning to 11 p.m. at night every day. They let her down after 11 p.m. to drink some water. Every night she was handcuffed to her bed and was unable to sleep. On the 3^rd day of the hanging she still didn't give in. Wang from the 2^nd Division asked a person with a camcorder from the labor camp education section to video her. They demanded she answer questions. Ms. Zhang didn't say a single word to them. When it came to the 6^th day of the hanging, Ms. Zhang had become very thin from the abuse. Her wrists were covered with blisters. At the time of her hanging, perpetrators from the 5^th Division brought slandering videotapes and materials. They played the videos non-stop and had criminal inmates read the slandering text. On the 7^th day she was let down, but was still handcuffed to her bed. The torture continued for 21 days.

There was a regulation in the labor camp: whoever violated the camp rules had to eat by sitting on a small chair. Ms. Zhang thought that this punishment was a humiliation for Dafa practitioners and made them lose their human dignity. Therefore, she refused to comply. Ms. Zhang said, "It is not I who does not follow the regulations; I didn't commit any wrongdoing. What do you plan to reform me into?"

The team heads of the labor camp knew that she would never be reformed. During her two and a half years of incarceration, none of them discussed the Falun Gong issue with her but pressured her in other ways. They used all kinds of methods to force her to reform. At the time of her release she didn't sign the reformation statement. Perpetrators said, "That is fine if you don't sign; but we won't let you stay in the labor camp one more day." Just like that, she walked out of the labor camp, openly and nobly.

Not long after she left the labor camp, policemen from the Dachang Police Station, Baoshan City, colluded with personnel from the Lianqian Neighborhood Committee. They often came to Ms. Zhang's mother's home, disturbed their normal life, called to ask about Ms. Zhang's situation and even tried to trick her elderly father, wanting to get some information from him. They even asked her neighbor, Wu Xingfa, to monitor her movements. A policewoman named Wang Hongying from the Dachang Police Station told the parking lot staff to strictly observe her ins and outs and write a report to the police.

Half year after Ms. Zhang's release (in Sept. 2004), she went to the Dachang Police Station and inquired about the issue of residential registration. Deputy police chief Yang detained her by force. He then got people from the 610 Office to interrogate her. Under this circumstance, she sent forth righteous thoughts. One of these perpetrators is named Chen Jiaguo. Another man said that his name was on the overseas "list of perpetrators" so he wouldn't give his name. Ms. Zhang refused to answer any of their questions, so that evening they got a 15 days detention card to put her in detention. Ms. Zhang was handcuffed and sent in a police car to the Baoshan Detention Center. Several people wanted to get more evidence to imprison her. Without any proper documentation they searched her residence and even confiscated all the letters her husband sent to her from jail.

She started a hunger strike at the police station before being sent to the detention center. On the fifth day, guards in the detention center dragged her out and force-fed her. They handcuffed her and also immobilized her with a belt of substantial width (25cm ~30cm or 9.8 in ~11.8in). That was called the Compression Belt carrying a pair of handcuffs. After a female guard force-fed her, she was handcuffed backward onto a metal door. She stood in water in her bare feet. A feeding tube was inserted into her nose. Late at night when a duty guard saw that she was ready to faint, she let her sit down, but she was still handcuffed to the door. It was in October; it was cold at night. She was sitting in water with a feeding tube in her nose. Unable to bear the ache around her hands, she kept moving her hands. The tube punched upwards in her throat along with her movement. She did not sleep for the whole night.

Just like that, when the police came to work the next day, she had suffered torture beyond recognition. The chief guard ordered the handcuffs opened and put a comforter on her. She was unable to speak. She could only write down why she wasn't allowed to sleep, and that her treatment by the guards lacked humanity. She requested the detention center guards to report this to the higher authorities. In the days that followed, she was unable to stand and could only recline on a wooden bunk. Because she was extremely weak she couldn't eat. She barely ate anything in those days.

In the last few days, the Political & Security Division sent a notice to transfer her to be educated in a "Legal and Law School" [a brainwashing center]. She spoke of how their actions were illegal and requested to be released immediately. The policewoman from the Political & Security Division claimed that Ms. Zhang was putting on an act. Many police heard what Ms. Zhang said, "One can beat practitioners to death without taking any responsibility. Countless people have been physically injured. You said you are educated. What did you learn in your study? Are there laws in your eyes?"

When the 15 days were up and it was time to release Ms. Zhang, the local police station personnel didn't notify her family to come pick her up. On the contrary, they dispatched a police car to deliver her to the Legal and Law School for forced brainwashing. People in the car included policemen from the Baoshan 610 Office, Mr. Lin (head of the Dachang Armed Forces Department), Mr. Zhu (member of the Lianqian Neighborhood Committee), Mr. Peng, and others. They accompanied Ms. Zhang to the Legal and Law school, dragged her to the 2^nd floor, and threw her on the floor.

She had a fever then. Her face was pale. She continued to send forth righteous thoughts. She asked the "persuading helper," "Is this the Legal and Law School?" The "helper" answered yes. Ms. Zhang then asked if a Legal and Law School teaches law. The "helper" said yes. Ms. Zhang asked again that since the legal and law school teaches law, then it must understand the law the best. The "helper" proudly said yes. Ms. Zhang replied that since it teaches law and understands law, then is it right to say that they were arresting her, because those people took her freedom away and sent her here without any legal documents. She also asked if it was a violation of law for them to arrest her? The "helper" then realized that she said something that she shouldn't have. When the Legal and Law School official arrived, the first thing Ms. Zhang asked was whether she had freedom. The official said that she had.

Even though she had a fever in those days, she continued to tell the "helper" that the arrest was illegal and voiced a strong request to see her family. On the fifth day her parents and mother-in-law came to the Qingpu District where the school was located. She told her family that she had been arrested. When her parents saw her condition, which had been brought about by abuse, they cried their hearts out. They firmly requested her release. Her father had been so worried that he had a stroke a few days earlier. Ms. Zhang assertively requested immediate release. The perpetrators insisted on having her stay. Then, they gave in little by little, attempting to bargain with her, but she didn't accept any of their bargains. People from the city 610 Office, the district 610 Office, the police station, the neighborhood committee, the "persuading helper," the Legal and Law School officials and the school president were all present and witnessed the scene. Finally, they agreed to release her.

A good-hearted "persuading helper" told her to be careful in the future, because the Legal and Law School had never released anyone within five days. She hoped Ms. Zhang's words would become true. Even the "helper" didn't know there were Falun Gong practitioners sentenced for up to ten years in prison. She realized it was wrong to treat Falun Gong practitioners like that in prison as well as in brainwashing centers.