(Minghui.org) A 73-year-old man became extremely emaciated after he was detained for three months because he practices Falun Gong.
Mr. Zhang Shuyin, of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, was arrested at his home on November 24, 2025, by Qianjin Police Station officers. They said a surveillance camera recorded him putting up Falun Gong posters. They took him to the police station and interrogated him for over three hours before releasing him.
Ten days later, on December 4, 2025, officers from the Shuangta Police Station broke into Mr. Zhang’s home and arrested him again. They confiscated some of his Falun Gong materials and a satellite dish used to receive uncensored news from overseas media. He has since been detained at the Chaoyang City Detention Center, where he experienced unexplained, rapid weight loss. His family is very worried about him.
Mr. Zhang used to work at the Chaoyang City Forced Labor Camp. He began to practice Falun Gong in 1996. Many of his ailments, including a heart condition, joint pain, and insomnia, soon disappeared. He strove to live by Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance and made significant contributions at work. One year during the Chinese New Year holiday, the boiler at work was leaking, and the repair service wasn’t available immediately. Mr. Zhang fixed the leak, and prevented expensive equipment from freezing in the cold.
After the persecution started in 1999, Mr. Zhang was repeatedly targeted and his wife also divorced him.
Mr. Zhang went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on April 30, 2000. He was arrested and escorted back. He was held at the Chaoyang City Second Detention Center for two weeks and fined 1,000 yuan.
Shortly after Mr. Zhang landed a job at a paper mill in 2001, the police arrested him and held him at the Chaoyang City Second Detention Center. They came every two weeks to interrogate him and deliver a renewed detention notice [administrative detention is usually 15 days]. They eventually accused him of “disrupting social order in detention.” He questioned how he could have “disrupted social order” when he was in custody. The police then changed the charge to “not cooperating in interrogation.”
Mr. Zhang went on a hunger strike to protest and was force-fed by more than ten guards. They held his head and legs, while inserting the feeding tube into his nose. He almost suffocated.
Unable to force Mr. Zhang to renounce Falun Gong, the guards tricked his mother, who was in her 80s, into traveling over 100 miles to the detention center. She knelt in front of him and refused to stand up. All the other family members who came with her tried to pressure Mr. Zhang to choose between his mother or Falun Gong. He replied that he could never repay his mother for giving birth to him and raising him, but Falun Gong transformed his life and he held it dear as well. Unable to persuade him, his brother slapped him in the face, before leaving with their mother.
Mr. Zhang was given a unknown forced labor term a bit over three months later and admitted to a labor camp. For two months, the labor camp guards forced him to sit on a small stool without moving for long hours every day.
During the time, Mr. Zhang’s wife faced frequent police harassment and discrimination at work. As a cashier at a credit union, she was under immense pressure, fearing any mistakes due to her mental distress would cost her the job. Unable to cope with the pressure, she divorced Mr. Zhang.
Mr. Zhang’s daughter was engaged to a military officer. Because of Mr. Zhang’s situation, he broke off their engagement.
Mr. Zhang’s son was still in school when he and his wife divorced. The once outgoing boy became withdrawn due to changes in the family and the discrimination he endured at school.
Mr. Zhang was arrested again on the evening of May 13, 2007, for distributing Falun Gong materials. After 15 days at the Shijiahetao Detention Center, he was given a two-year labor camp term. The police later allowed him to serve time at home after extorting an unknown amount of money from his family.
Mr. Zhang was arrested two more times, on June 11, 2021, and May 11, 2024, before his most recent persecution.
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