(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old woman in Xiong County, Baoding City, Hebei Province has faced repeated police attempts to get her prosecuted following her arrest in 2023 for raising awareness of the persecution of her faith, Falun Gong. The local procuratorate returned her case to the police in October 2025 but the latter still refused to dismiss the case.
Ms. Zhang Guizhen, a former employee of the Xiong County Middle School, was reported on the early morning of February 23, 2023, for distributing Falun Gong informational materials at a residential committee. She was arrested around 11 a.m. and taken to the Chengguan Police Station. Her home was ransacked twice.
Ms. Zhang was taken to the Xiong County Legal Center around 5 p.m., where she was interrogated by officer Zhu Hefeng of the Xiong County Domestic Security Office. She was handcuffed and restrained in a metal chair. As she remained silent, the police fabricated the answers themselves. They kept Ms. Zhang handcuffed even when she slept at night.
Zhu and another officer, Zhang Baozhong, made a few attempts that evening to detain Ms. Zhang at the Rongcheng Detention Center. She was repeatedly denied admission due to her elevated blood pressure, which kept increasing during subsequent physical exams.
When taking her back to the police station at night, Zhang said they weren’t done with her case and another officer, Xu Yitao, threatened to detain her the next day even if her blood pressure stayed high.
Ms. Zhang was taken to the Xiong County Chinese Medicine Hospital for another exam the next morning, and she was still unfit for detention. The police forced her to ingest blood pressure pills twice and took her to the Rongcheng Detention Center in the afternoon; her systolic pressure was still over 200 mmHg (a normal level is 120 mmHg or lower). They took her to the Rongcheng Chinese Medicine Hospital and the results remained the same.
The police called Ms. Zhang’s family at 5:30 p.m. on February 25 (the third day after her arrest) to pick her up at the Xiong County Police Department. She was given six months of house arrest, with her niece as her guarantor. Officers Zhang and Zhu threatened that they wouldn’t give up trying to send Ms. Zhang to prison.
The police kept calling Ms. Zhang’s niece on April 17, 2023, and warned that her aunt hadn’t reported to them in two months. They demanded to see Ms. Zhang soon. Her niece then complained to Ms. Zhang about the harassment. Ms. Zhang called the police herself. Zhu picked up the call. When he realized that it was Ms. Zhang, he flew into a rage and said, “Where are you? We will come to find you.”
In less than ten minutes, three officers, including Cui Lixue, Li Nan and Xu Yitao, showed up at Ms. Zhang’s home. Zhu walked over from across the street and shouted, “Take her away.”
When Ms. Zhang refused to go with them, the police forcibly carried her into their cruiser. Zhu said to her, “You are a criminal. If you don’t cooperate with us, we will put you in jail!”
After arriving at the police station, Zhu took out a few forms for Ms. Zhang to sign. When she refused to sign, Zhu became irritable and threatened to handcuff her. After nearly 40 minutes of standoff, they attempted to deceive Ms. Zhang into pressing her fingerprints on the form but failed. Four officers then grabbed her hand and forced her to fingerprint the documents. Shortly after, they took her home.
During the whole process, no one produced any proper identification or a search or arrest warrant. Only one officer was wearing a police uniform.
The police harassed Ms. Zhang and her family frequently following her release.
Ms. Zhang was stopped by two officers when she was riding an electric bike near her home around 9 a.m. on May 15, 2025. They searched her bag and snatched the key to her bike. Several more officers soon arrived in another car. One of them quickly flashed an arrest warrant and then dragged Ms. Zhang into the car.
At the police case processing center, the police kept dragging Ms. Zhang around, until she was totally exhausted and collapsed in a chair. They handcuffed her and restrained her in a metal chair for interrogation. After 40 minutes, they measured her blood pressure and the reading was 190/132 mmHg (normal level is 120/80 mmHg). They then took her to the Jikang Hospital before driving her to the Rongcheng Detention Center in the afternoon. She was given six pills of antihypertensive drugs while on the way. When they arrived at the detention center, her blood pressure measured at 204/132 mmHg. The guards refused to admit her and the police had to release her. It was after 9 p.m. when Ms. Zhang arrived home. Her arms were covered with bruises due to being roughly handled by the police.
Ms. Zhang was approached by an officer again when she was riding an electric bike for grocery shopping at 9 a.m. on October 28, 2025. They also searched her bag, pushed her into their car, and took her to the Xiong County Procuratorate.
Yin Shaohui of the Xiong County Domestic Security Office and four other officers went to a side room for a private meeting. When they came out 10 minutes later, they had a document bag with Ms. Zhang’s name on it. They took her home soon afterwards.
Ms. Zhang later learned that the Xiong County Procuratorate returned her case to the police that day.
Officers Li Nan and Gao Shan showed up at Ms. Zhang’s home after 5 p.m. on November 12, 2025. Without producing any IDs or proper document, they ordered her to sign a new bail release document, while recording the process. She refused. The police nonetheless kept her on bail and refused to dismiss her case despite their failure to get her indicted by the procuratorate.
Prior to the 2023-2025 episodes, Ms. Zhang was repeatedly targeted for her faith in the early years of the persecution. She was previously arrested on April 30, 2010, with five other practitioners for going to Yuanjiayuan Village to talk to people about Falun Gong. Fan Suocheng, the village secretary, reported them to the Longwan Township Government. Tian Jianghua, the township secretary, called the Longwan Police Station to make the arrests.
The practitioners were held at the Longwan Police Station and released around 7 p.m. The police raided their homes and impounded their bikes.
Guo Xuejun and Zhang Baozhong of the Xiong County Domestic Security Office arrested Ms. Zhang and two other practitioners on May 13, 2010. They took them to the Longwan Police Station and said they weren’t done with their case yet. The practitioners were transferred to the Xiong County Detention Center around 7 p.m. and were given forced labor camp terms by the Xiong County Police Department later that evening.
As one practitioner had a severe medical condition, she was released the next day on May 14. Ms. Zhang and the other practitioner were taken to the Shijiazhuang Women’s Forced Labor Camp in the afternoon.
When both practitioners’ one-year term expired on May 12, 2011, the labor camp refused to release them, but extended their terms by over a month. They were released around June 29, 2011.