34-year-old Harbin Man Endured 7 Years of Brutal Torture in Prison
(Minghui.org) The Dongling Prison in Shenyang City is one of the few prisons that imprison Falun Gong practitioners. Since the Chinese Communist Party started to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, the prison has used brutal methods to torture practitioners. To date, practitioners detained at the prison are still subjected to torture for not renouncing their faith. Below is a persecution account of a 34-year-old man who served seven years in prison.
Mr. Zhang Shude, a native of Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, earned a master’s degree from Harbin Technological University in 2014. He then landed a job at the Dalian City Science and Technology Design Institute in Liaoning Province. His employer later relocated him to nearby Panjin City in the same province.
When Mr. Zhang went to the police station in Panjin to have his temporary residence permit renewed on June 26, 2017, the police refused to process his application after knowing that he practices Falun Gong, and arrested him three days later. He was tried in the Xinglong District Court on January 16, 2018, and sentenced to seven years on February 8. He was also fined 20,000 yuan.
Mr. Zhang was taken to the Nanshan Prison on October 16, 2018, before being transferred to the 7th division of Dongling Prison in Shenyang City on December 27, 2018.
The 7th division (currently renamed as the 3rd division), is in charge of transforming practitioners. Every practitioner is locked in a small room and monitored by four inmates. Elderly practitioners are subjected to sleep deprivation while younger practitioners are beaten and shocked with electric batons.
When Mr. Zhang did the Falun Gong exercises on January 4, 2019, two guards, Liu Haibo and Yang Ming, and inmate Li Tianbang beat him until they were exhausted. Mr. Zhang’s nose bled and he had bruises all over. He also suffered from extreme pain in his head, neck, and chest, and had to use his hands to support his body when he turned over during sleep. He didn’t recover until two weeks later.
Torture re-enactment: Beatings
At 5.30 a.m. on January 25, 2019, two inmates, Yan Bing and Liu Zefeng, went to Mr. Zhang’s cell and started to hit him. He was punched five times in the face until his face was bruised. He reported to the guard Yang about it, but Yang and another guard, each holding electric batons in their hands, said, “The inmates were instructed to do so. We will not go easy on you if you don’t follow the rules here next time.”
From December 27, 2018, to April 8, 2019, Mr. Zhang was not allowed to spend his money to buy daily necessities. He was also not allowed to take showers or buy extra food. He could only eat prison food. Moreover, inmates were assigned to monitor him and make trouble for him, including launching personal attacks on him.
Mr. Zhang told his family on April 8, 2019, about the lack of food and being forced to wear heavy shoes despite the weather turning warm. His family quickly reported this to the prison management and the prison allowed him to purchase pickled vegetables and salted eggs, but no carb food such as bread or instant noodles. Mr. Zhang told the guard Yang that if he was still denied the right of buy food, he would go on a hunger strike. In response, Yang said, “Sure, it’s better that you don’t even drink water.”
Mr. Zhang started a hunger strike on April 16 and demanded to be transferred to a different division. The guard rejected him with the excuse that he didn’t renounce Falun Gong. Three days into his hunger strike, he could still walk. But his legs started twitching on the 4th day and he could not walk anymore. During the day, the inmates carried him to the workshop and left him on the ground. At night, he was not allowed to sleep on the bed and could only sit or lie down on the concrete floor.
The guards attempted to force-feed Mr. Zhang on the 6th day. Due to his high blood pressure, they didn’t force feed him with food, but with water. On the 7th day, the guard Liu ordered an elderly inmate to chew the food and then feed it into Mr. Zhang’s mouth. Mr. Zhang still refused to eat. Liu Jian, the division director then ordered Mr. Zhang to be force-fed.
Mr. Zhang was taken to the prison hospital and an inmate surnamed Wang inserted the feeding tube into his nose and force-fed him (the nurses didn’t do it themselves, to avoid liability associated with the force-feeding). After the force-feeding, Mr. Zhang pulled out the tube. The inmate force-fed him again that afternoon.
On the 8th day, the guards force-fed Mr. Zhang another time and he still pulled the tube out afterward. At night, the guard ordered the inmate on duty to wake Mr. Zhang up every half hour, to make him unable to rest well and also to check if he was still alive.
On the 9th day of the hunger strike, which was April 24, Mr. Zhang was not allowed to lie down. The inmates sprayed water into his nose and also smeared chili on his nose. Unable to bear the torture, Mr. Zhang bit his tongue. The inmates then stopped torturing him. That night, the guards promised that they would stop forcing him to renounce Falun Gong if he stopped the hunger strike. Mr. Zhang thus began to eat again.
Mr. Zhang was transferred to the 5th division on June 10. Because he refused to do the forced labor, the guard Zhang Baining handcuffed him, shocked him with electric batons, and slapped him on his head and ears with his shoes. The torture, lasted over two hours until the three electric batons ran out of power and caused Mr. Zhang’s eardrum to perforate. The guard ordered him to write the statement, “I will do whatever the captain tells me to do,” but he refused. The torture only stopped after he agreed to write, “I will not make trouble for the captain.”
Torture re-enactment: Shocked with electric batons.
After Mr. Zhang’s eardrum perforated, he tried to report this to the division director, Yan Zhengyuan, and requested medical intervention. Yan rejected him.
Mr. Zhang told his family about his perforated eardrum during their visit on July 11, 2019. His family then requested medical intervention for him but was also rejected.
Due to prolonged pain in his ears, Mr. Zhang demanded medical intervention again on July 12, 2019. The guard Zhang still rejected him, saying that it didn’t matter even if Mr. Zhang filed a complaint to the prison administration in Liaoning Province or the Department of Justice.
Mr. Zhang said if the guards rejected his request, he would not do the free labor. Zhang took him to his office, shocked him with three electric batons simultaneously, and doused him with water. When Mr. Zhang was nearly unconscious, the guards instructed a mentally disoriented inmate to perform CPR on him before continuing to shock him. Mr. Zhang vomited and convulsed. The torture only stopped when he was on the brink of death. The guard then instructed another inmate to press Mr. Zhang’s philtrum (the vertical groove on the surface of the upper lip) to revive him before shocking him again.
The guard shocked Mr. Zhang for four hours until midnight. His neck, arm, chest, and back were full of blisters. Even some inmates were outraged after seeing his injuries.
Mr. Zhang’s family reported the torture to the prison management, but to no avail. When his family questioned guard Zhang why he was tortured, he said, “I even want to kill him!”
On November 30, 2020, after doing the free labor for a year, Mr. Zhang declared that he wouldn’t work or do the roll call anymore from December 1. In retaliation, guard, Du Xihai, forced him to sit on a small stool during the day, and he couldn’t take a break until late at night.
Du handcuffed Mr. Zhang to the bed after seeing him doing the Falun Gong exercises at night on December 3, 2020. Mr. Zhang went on another hunger strike to protest.
On December 7, 9, and 11, 2020, the guards took Mr. Zhang to the hospital for force-feeding three times. There was blood on the feeding tube each time.
After each force-feeding, the inmates would carry Mr. Zhang to the guards’ office, handcuff him to the metal chair, and deprive him of sleep. Meanwhile, Du played songs praising the Chinese Communist Party at high volume and ordered the inmates to take off Mr. Zhang’s underwear and wrote the name of Falun Gong’s founder on it. He threatened to have Mr. Zhang wear that underwear if he didn’t agree to stop the hunger strike. Mr. Zhang didn’t budge and Du indeed had the inmates put the underwear on him. With Mr. Zhang’s persistent hunger strike, Du finally agreed that he didn’t have to do the free labor but had to sit on a small stool for 8 hours a day. Mr. Zhang started eating.
On September 8, 2021, the 5th division launched another round of campaigns targeting the practitioners and prohibited them from doing the exercises. When Mr. Zhang did the exercises one night, Zhao Xun, the division’s production manager handcuffed him to the bed.
Mr. Zhang had another hunger strike. Zhao uncuffed one hand two days later but shackled his one foot. Since then, the guard cuffed Mr. Zhang to the bed every night when he was sleeping. Zhao also instructed an inmate named Cui Enhao to monitor and torture Mr. Zhang, as well as verbally abusing Falun Gong to agitate him.
Mr. Zhang was summoned by Hou Xiaolin, the director of the fifth division on October 1, 2021, and ordered him to renounce his faith. He refused to comply. Hou slapped him in the face more than 20 times.
The guards stopped handcuffing Mr. Zhang before he went to bed on June 2, 2022. When he got up at 10 p.m. to do the exercises, the inmate on duty pulled his arms to stop him and also reported it to the guard. The guard cuffed Mr. Zhang’s hands and legs to the bed and also shocked him with electric batons. Afterward, the guards prevented Mr. Zhang from calling his family, cutting off his only communication channel with his family to inform them of the visitation date.
After the 5th division was disbanded on August 13, 2022, Mr. Zhang was transferred to the 4th division. The inmates were also ordered to monitor him and press him to renounce Falun Gong.
On October 29, 2022, Mr. Zhang had a dispute with inmate Liu Bo. Liu threw his blanket to the ground and reported it to the guard. The guard Mei Zhuguo took Mr. Zhang to his office and shocked him with an electric baton. He collapsed to the ground. Mei only allowed him to go back to sleep after he vented his anger.
Mr. Zhang started a hunger strike again the next day October 30, 2022. Guard Mei shocked him again and handcuffed him. Several inmates were called over to pin Mr. Zhang down and an inmate was ordered to chew a bun and feed it to Mr. Zhang. At the same time, Mei shocked Mr. Zhang until the baton ran out of power. Mei then noticed deep scars on Mr. Zhang’s wrists and removed the handcuffs. (Due to the tight handcuffing, Mr. Zhang felt numb and swollen in his hands for a long time after that.)
Mei asked Mr. Zhang how they could make him eat. Mr. Zhang replied that he would eat if they allowed him to do the Falun Gong exercises. Mei agreed. Mr. Zhang did the exercises and started eating.
The 4th division was also disbanded on January 15, 2024, and Mr. Zhang was transferred to the 6th division. Pei Shifeng, the director of the 6th division called Mr. Zhang to his office on January 22, 2024, and handcuffed and shackled him.
The guard later removed the shackle but kept him handcuffed. From January 22 to May 17, 2024, Mr. Zhang was handcuffed even during meal times. The handcuffs were removed when he washed or used the restroom. The guards also kept him handcuffed and shackled while he slept. This harmed Mr. Zhang mentally and physically. He often had discomfort in his stomach and felt great pressure in his head.
Mr. Zhang was transferred to the 3rd division on May 17, 2024. With only one month of his term left, he did not face any torture or verbal abuse and wasn’t handcuffed during the day anymore. However, the guards still handcuffed him at night until he was released on June 28, 2024.