One day in June at around 11:40 AM, four policemen from the Xingfu Police Station in Zhifu District, Yantai City came to the home of a Falun Gong practitioner. They told her that they needed her help in an investigation, and wanted her to come to the police station with them. The practitioner had just come back from visiting her family in her hometown, and had not had a chance to eat lunch yet. Her daughter told the policemen, "Is it possible for you to wait until she finishes her lunch? It will also give us a chance to talk to her and try to persuade her to cooperate with your investigation." The policemen turned down her request and took out a pair of handcuffs. The practitioner was pushed and dragged away still wearing a pair of bedroom slippers.
The daughter of the practitioner took a pair of her mother's shoes and went to the police station a while later. She asked the policemen where her mother was being held. Zhang Yuanchao, the head of the police station, told her to come upstairs with him. He took her to a meeting room on the second floor of the police station. Once they entered the meeting room, the first thing he said was, "Are you a Falun Gong practitioner or not?" The daughter replied that she was not a practitioner. Zhang then took out a notice indicating that her mother was going to be sent to a labor camp, and asked her to sign the notice. The daughter said, "When the policemen took my mother away, they said that they needed her help in conducting an investigation. How could that suddenly be turned into a sentence at a labor camp? I can't sign anything before I know what is going on here."
What happened next came as a great shock to the daughter. Captain Zhang suddenly pulled on her hair with one hand and slapped her face repeatedly with the other. He kept hitting her and trying to force her to sign the notice. Four or five policemen came into the room shortly after. While two policemen twisted her arms behind her back, Zhang started to kick her stomach while shouting, "So what if I am beating you? Are you going to sign the form or not?" Despite the brutal beating, the daughter still refused to sign the form, and eventually the policemen let her go.
When the daughter returned home, she felt as if she had just woken up from a nightmare. She decided to consult a lawyer, who assured her that she had sufficient grounds to file a complaint. So she went to the police station that very afternoon to file an official complaint. Zhang Yuanchao came outside and said, "You can try to file a lawsuit anywhere you want to! Nobody will offer any protection to family members of Falun Gong practitioners. The next time I see you, I am going to hammer you to death! Why don't you get the hell out of here?"
How could a "people's policeman" and a captain of a police station have such complete disregard for the laws and brutally beat a citizen who has done nothing wrong? Is this justice?
