57-Year-Old Woman Serving Second 5-Year Prison Term for Her Faith Forced to Work Long Hours, Now Emaciated and Frail
(Minghui.org) A 57-year-old woman in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, has become extremely emaciated and weak, while serving a five-year term because she practices Falun Gong. To make things worse, most of her upper teeth have become loose and she has trouble eating.
Ms. Zhang Ping, a former employee of the Securities Department of Gansu Provincial Trust and Investment Company, was arrested on May 9, 2022, for talking to people about the persecution of Falun Gong. She was sentenced to five years and fined 20,000 yuan on April 7, 2023. Her appeal was denied on November 13, 2023, and she was transferred from the Lanzhou City First Detention Center to the Gansu Province Women’s Prison at the end of January 2024.
Because Ms. Zhang resisted the persecution at the Seventh Division, Xiao Yan, the deputy director, threatened to make her drink the water she used to wash her feet. Xiao also accused Ms. Zhang of having a mental illness and instigated the inmates to beat her and force her to take psychiatric drugs.
The guards often forced Ms. Zhang to stand for long hours, sometimes up to 11 hours.
Ms. Zhang’s son, who lives in a different province, traveled a long distance to the prison in March 2024 to visit her, but was turned away. The prison authorities said his mother was denied family visits because she refused to renounce Falun Gong. Her son was also barred from sending her clothes or making deposits into her commissary account.
Ms. Zhang was allowed a phone call with her son in June 2024. The call was cut off in less than ten minutes. Her son was finally allowed to see her in mid-August of 2024. He noticed that his mother was emaciated. Ms. Zhang said she was not given enough food to eat and had lost about ten pounds since her prison admission. The money her son was finally allowed to deposit was tightly controlled by the guards, who limited her purchase of daily necessities.
The guards ended the visit after ten minutes and said that Ms. Zhang was still under strict management, which meant many of her rights as a prisoner were revoked. Her son was not told when the strict management phase would end.
While calling her family on March 27, 2025, Ms. Zhang mentioned that she “had evidence to prove that she was interrogated with torture and wrongfully detained.” As soon as she said those words, the call was abruptly cut off. It was one minute and 58 seconds into the conversation when a typical call is three minutes.
When Ms. Zhang called her family again in December 2025 she sounded disoriented.
Her family was allowed to visit her in early February 2026, after she was transferred to the first division. She looked very thin. She told her family that she was forced to work long hours every day. Her upper teeth became loose and she had difficulty eating.
Past Persecution, Including a Prior 5-Year Prison Term
In addition to her latest prison sentence, Ms. Zhang was previously arrested on numerous other occasions for practicing Falun Gong. After she was arrested on August 13, 2002, she was beaten so hard that her head was covered with bumps and her mouth and nose oozed blood; her left ear drum was broken and she suffered a minor concussion.
Police officer Wei Dong made a rope by twisting a strip of cloth and gagged her mouth with it for four straight hours. When he finally removed the rope, he couldn’t even untie it since it had cut into her flesh, and he had to cut it off. As a result, her lower jaw as dislocated and even today it hasn’t returned to normal. Moreover, one incisor on her lower jaw was broken off and another one became very loose.
When night fell, Wei and another officer drove Ms. Zhang to the Xiguoyuan Detention Center. A guard put a shackle weighing about 50 pounds on her and ordered inmates to beat her and not allow her to sleep. They force fed her the second day which caused her to vomit blood. They had to send her to the hospital for resuscitation.
In October 2002, Ms. Zhang was taken to the Lajiatan Drug Rehabilitation Center. She was subjected to the tying torture six times in just three days. As a result,her arms turned black and purple. She was unable to hold anything for 20 days, and even 40 days later she still had no feeling in her hands.
Torture illustration: tying torture
Ms. Zhang managed to escape later on. She was arrested again in 2005 and later sentenced to five years. She was constantly beaten, deprived of sleep, held in solitary confinement, and shocked with electric batons. When her term expired, the authorities took her to a brainwashing center instead of releasing her.
Related Reports:
How Falun Gong Practitioners Are Tortured in Gansu Provincial Women’s Prison
54-Year-Old Gansu Woman Given Second 5-Year Prison Term for Her Faith in Falun Gong
Facts of the Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Zhang Ping from Lanzhou City, Gansu Province
Two Practitioners Sentenced to Long Terms in Gansu Province Women's PrisonThe Persecution That Ms. Long Lianqiu Suffered Before Death