Because he put up a banner "Falun Dafa Is Good," Mr. Zhang is sentenced secretly without his family's knowledge.

Mr. Zhang Chen Sentenced to Three Years in Prison

Name: Zhang Chen 
Gender: Male
Age: 55
Occupation: Driver

Date of Most Recent Arrest: October 24, 2009
Most recent place of detention: Daowai Division, Harbin Detention Center 
City: Harbin
Province: Helongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Detention, beatings, hung up, extortion, home ransacked, illegal sentencing

Mr. Zhang Chen worked for the Bus Company in Harbin City for approximately 20 years. He was regarded as an outstanding professional driver by his company.

In December 2000, Mr. Zhang went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. Because he held up a banner "Falun Dafa Is Good," He was arrested by Yanshan Police Station in Beijing. The police forced him to the floor and beat him brutally. Later, they hung him up on a tree and beat him.

On January 1, 2001,  Mr. Zhang was transferred to Harbin City Detention Center. The police offered rewards to inmates to beat him. They forced him to sit on the floor. If he moved even a little bit, they would beat him severely. They would beat him whenever they wanted to, sometimes hitting his head. These brutal beatings broke his spine and he could not move at all. The long term abuse made Mr. Zhang very faint and he had no strength to speak. His hair turned gray, his eyesight became poor, and he lost so much weight that he became skeletal. When he began to spit up blood, the police arranged for him to be sent home. The local police extorted two thousand yuan from his family. The detention center also forced his family to hand over more than one thousand yuan for his meals, of which each only had a bun and a bowl of soup with only several pieces of vegetable leaves.

On October 24, 2009, Mr. Zhang put up another banner saying "Falun Dafa Is Good." He was arrested by Yongyuan Police Station in Daowai District and was later transferred to the District Detention Center. When he arrived, he was brutally beaten. The police offered rewards to three prisoners--Xiaofu, Xiaowen, and Guo--to beat Mr. Zhang. They hit his head against the wall, and Mr Zhang fainted. They smashed his back so hard that he could not move for a month. While they were beating him, they shouted, "The government let us do this to you! We do represent the government. We are the government. The government let us torture you Falun Gong on purpose!"

While Mr. Zhang was in prison, the police ransacked and searched his home. They did not find anything to use as evidence against him, so they could only give his family the detention statement and wait for the trial to be held. On December 11, one month later, his family finally got an arrest notification.

On March 31, 2010, the District Court tried Mr. Zhang Chen and other Falun Gong practitioners. However, Mr. Zhang's family only was only told later about the trial on April 6, 2010. When they went to Daowai Police Precinct to get more information about the case, Li Ying, the Captain of the Domestic Security Team, said, "Now we are no longer in charge of his case. Go to the court and ask them."

At the court, the policeman on duty claimed that Mr. Zhang had been sent to the 7th Division of the City Police Department already. His family said that they knew from the precinct that Mr. Zhang was in the criminal division of the court. The policeman suddenly changed attitude, "Why should we tell you? We only give notice to non-adults' families, so no needs to tell an adult's family "

Eventually Mr. Zhang's family got in touch with a person named Bu Linghong. She refused to tell them what her position was, but claimed she had called Mr. Zhang's home phone at the time of the trial, but no one picked her call. However, Mr. Zhang's family had only given their cellphone number, as they did not have a home phone. It was clear that Bu was lying and that she had not notified Mr. Zhang's family of the court hearing.

When Mr Zhangs's family asked Bu Linghong as to why they sentenced Mr. Zhang without his family being present, she could not say anything. Instead, she kept repeating that she had made the phone call. When his family asked to see Mr. Zhang, she said that that was not allowed. She then said, "We can try to sentence him lightly. We are just doing our routine job."

Eventually, they sentenced Mr. Zhang to three years in prison.