(Minghui.org) A woman in Liaoning Province filed a lawsuit against former dictator Jiang Zemin on November 10, 2015, for the suffering that she and her family have endured since July 1999.
Ms. Zang Yulan (臧玉兰) and her two siblings started practicing Falun Gong in 1995. They benefited greatly from the practice, especially her older brother, who was then suffering from a potassium deficiency disease. He regained his health shortly after.
Ever since the persecution of Falun Gong started in July 1999, the three siblings have faced varying degrees of persecution. Ms. Zang was sent to forced labor camps twice, her brother died, and her younger sister is still in prison.
In September 1999, Ms. Zang and her sister Ms. Zang Yuyun (臧玉云) were arrested for traveling to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. They were held in a detention center for nearly three months.
In the center, practitioners organized a hunger strike to protest the brutal torture of another practitioner by the police.
The older Ms. Zang was dragged out by three inmates and had a tube pushed up her nose and into her stomach by a prison doctor. They filled her stomach with water. The tube was covered with blood when it was pulled out.
The younger Ms. Zang was handcuffed and force-fed with food and alcohol. Then she was brutally beaten with a belt, because the police thought that she had organized the strike.
Both sisters were ordered to spend one year in a forced labor camp. They were taken to the Fushan Forced Labor Camp in December 1999 and transferred to the Masanjia Forced Labor Camp in March 2000. They were beaten and subjected to brainwashing. The younger Ms. Zang was only 21 at the time.
On September 11, 2001, plainclothes police broke into the sisters' rented apartment, arrested them, and took them to the detention center. The elder Ms. Zang was sent to a forced labor camp for three years.
At the end of 2002, she was once again sent to Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, where she was forced to do hard labor and exposed to harmful chemicals. She was denied visitation and was given only a small steamed bun for each meal.
Both sisters were once again arrested at their home on July 20, 2004. The authorities struck the younger Ms. Zang on the hip so severely that the bone and flesh separated. She was later sent to a forced labor camp for three years.
After a week in the labor camp, she was taken back to the police department and her case was re-opened. On April 4, 2005, the younger Ms. Zang was sentenced to 13 years of imprisonment. In total, she has been detained for 14 years.
Ms. Zang's older brother Mr. Zang Yufu (臧玉福) was arrested and taken to the detention center in November 1999 when he was about to travel to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. At that point, his sisters were also arrested and taken back to their local detention center. They were all handcuffed together.
Mr. Zang was detained for a month before his company came to take him back.
At the end of 2000, Mr. Zang was arrested at work and taken to the brainwashing center, where he was brutally tortured.
Thugs were hired to torture him by scratching his armpits and striking his genitals. He reached his limit of endurance and wrote a statement promising to give up Falun Gong against his will.
After his release, he changed drastically. He became short-tempered and did not dare to practice anymore, afraid of being persecuted. His health deteriorated. After eight years of battling his illness, he passed away at the age of 40 on November 21, 2007.
The siblings' parents also faced tremendous pressure. Their father suffered a stroke and still has high blood pressure. Their mother lost a lot of weight and her back is badly hunched over.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners over the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.