Name: Zhao Juan (赵娟)
Gender: Female
Age: 45
Address: Shuangyashan City
Occupation: Middle school teacher

Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 11, 2006
Most recent place of detention: A detention center (看守所 )
City: Shuangyashan City
Province: Heilongjiang Province
Persecution Suffered: Detention, forced labor, beatings, force-feedings, electric shock, solitary confinement, interrogation, home ransacked.

(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Zhao Juan, a Falun Dafa practitioner and a teacher from the No. 1 Middle School of Shuangyashan City, Heilongjiang Province, has been arrested six times and twice sentenced to forced labor during the ten years of the persecution of Falun Gong. At Xigemu Forced Labor Camp in Jiamusi City, she was tortured several times. Ms. Zhao has been forced to leave her position, at which she worked for 20 years.

Ms. Zhao Juan, 45 years old, is a kindhearted person. Her classes received awards several times at provincial and municipal levels. She was an excellent teacher, and her students loved her very much.

Becoming a practitioner

Ms. Zhao Juan suffered from severe diseases, including neurasthenia. Every day she had body aches and was very weak. On a 20-minute walk, she had to stop several times before she could make it home. Eventually she had to be hospitalized for treatment, but with no improvement. At the end of 1995, she started to practice Falun Gong. Very soon, she recovered from neurasthenia. She could walk all the way home and her body felt light. Her stomachaches, which she had for over ten years, and her inability to drink cold water completely disappeared. The universal principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance taught her how to be a good human being. She got healthier physically and she became broadminded. After regular class, she very often held remedial classes for her students without charging them. She also supported those students who were in financial difficulty.

Detained for continuing to practice Falun Dafa after the ban

In July 1999, the Chinese Communist Party started to suppress Falun Gong. Ms. Zhao decided to go to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice.

On July 20, she and other practitioners had hardly arrived at the station in Beijing when they were arrested by the Public Security Bureau and by her employer. On September 9, 1999, she went alone to Beijing to appeal again. In Beijing, she found no justice, and two days later she returned home. On the following day, she was again detained at the Shuangyashan City Detention Center by Ling Dawei from the Jianshan Public Security Sub-bureau. She was detained for one month before she was released.

The Shuangyashan Municipal Government kept talking to her husband. Due to all the pressure, her husband divorced her even though they had been happily married for ten years. Every day, her employer directed people to follow her--they even lived in her residence. They also detained her at the school dormitory and did not allow her to go home.

On October 25, Ms. Zhao was illegally arrested by the Shuangyashan Municipal Education Board and taken to the detention center. (The Shuangyashan Municipal Education Board is not an enforcement agency and is not entitled to make arrests.) On no legal grounds, she was sentenced to two years of forced labor. On December 2, she was again arrested and taken to Xigemu Forced Camp in Jiamusi.

Tortured to the point of unconsciousness

At Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp, Ms. Zhao Juan was tortured inhumanly. Every day, she was made to do forced labor. Every morning at 5:00 a.m., she got up. There was no water inside the cells. No matter how cold it was, they had to do the washing outdoors. Very often before she finished washing, the water in the basin turned into ice. To go to the restroom, she had to go to the courtyard outdoors. After breakfast, Falun Gong practitioners had to go to the crude, dark, cold, and drafty workshop to pick small beans. Every day, they had to work over ten hours. Very often before meals, they were not allowed to wash their hands. For three meals a day, all they ate was steamed cakes made from chicken forage. (When practitioners moved the bags to the cafeteria, they saw written on the bags: "No.152 Factory" and "No.153 Factory." These factories made forage for feeding chickens.) Very often the steamed cakes were not done before they were taken out to give to the practitioners to eat. There was dust and sand inside the cakes. Sometimes there were not even any pickles. After meals, they had to go back to the workshop and work. Very often they had to work until 9 or 10 p.m. If they could not finish the job, they had to bring their work back to the cells and finish there. If they wanted to go to the restroom, the time limit was around 5 minutes for everyone to go. There were over 30 people, and some of them did not have the chance to go to the restroom. Very often before they finished using the restroom, the guards had other prisoners get them out.

Under this kind of inhumane treatment, Dafa practitioners did the exercises together to protest the persecution. In the evening, five to six male guards from the administrative section took Ms. Zhao Juan and four or five other practitioners to an abandoned building. The female director, Zheng Liyan, beat Ms. Zhao until her face was deformed. They stopped beating her after they could not move their hands. They forced Ms. Zhao to stand for a full night.

On March 23, 2000, over 200 practitioners went on a hunger strike to demand their unconditional release. Many practitioners were beaten and force-fed through their noses with concentrated salt water--a bag of salt in a half basin of water. On the 17^th day of the hunger strike, Ms. Zhao Juan was handcuffed to the bed and her feet were tied to the bed as well. She was not allowed to move, the tube into her nose was not taken out, and she was not allowed to go to the restroom.

For some time, she was held in the same room with four to five others. Every morning, they were given a half dipper of water. The toilet was inside the room with no lid. The weather got warmer and warmer, and they were not allowed to open the window. The stinky, damp smell of mold was very strong, and there was a severe lack of oxygen. Four or five practitioners were forced to use an old plastic bag to hold their excrement.

In order to force Ms. Zhao to give up her belief, they put her alone in a cell for three months, during which time she was continuously harassed by people who came to talk her into given up the practice. Under great pressure, and since she did not have access to Dafa books, her loneliness gradually made her mind unclear. She started to accept the evil words. Eventually she became completely disturbed and believed it was right to walk on the opposite path. She offered to help to "transform" others, and even assisted the government and the police and went everywhere to make speeches to deceive many people.

Arrested and sentenced to forced labor again

One year after she came home, Ms. Zhao Juan understood that she had been wrong and decided to return to Dafa.

On April 25, 2002, the director of Anbang Police Substation (now called the Wohongqiao Police Substation), Liu Yi, Jiang Zhihong, Liu Chenghai, Liu Wanshan, and others went to search Ms. Zhao Juan's home. They arrested her and took her to the Shuangyashan City Detention Center, saying they would detain her for 15 days. She went on a hunger strike to protest the illegal detention. On the following day, the director of the detention center, Bai Shuwen; prison doctor Xu Enjiang; and four other male prisoners force-fed Ms. Zhao. Two of her lower front teeth were broken and she bled all over her face. They also injured her mouth. When they saw they could not open her mouth, prison doctor Xu Engjiang inserted a steel plate so that they could continue to force-feed her.

On April 27, Anbang Police Substation officials suddenly showed up to interrogate her. It was learned from their phone calls that they intended to sentence her to forced labor again after changing the detention of 15 days to criminal detention. They also said this was urgent. In recording the notes, since Ms. Zhao Juan was not able to say anything, Liu Qinghai from the Anbang Police Substation just made up the notes with the help of prisoner doctor Xu Enjiang. Without Ms. Zhao Juan saying anything, they made up a complete report. It was made clear afterwards that the director of the detention center, Bai Shuwen, was covering up his own crimes. He was afraid that the incident in which Ms. Zhao's mouth was injured and her two front teeth broken would be made public, so he worked to have her secretly sentenced to forced labor. Because of her poor physical condition, Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp refused to take her. They again took four people back, including Ms. Zhao, but the detention center delayed releasing her. She went on a hunger strike to protest and was not released until she was in critical condition.

On October 29, 2002, when Ms. Zhao went to visit a senior practitioner, a police officer named Wang Jun came to visit him. When Ms. Zhao was leaving, Wang Jun arrested her. At the end of the year, she was admitted to Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp. It was said the Shuangyashan Public Security Bureau was afraid that the Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp would refuse to take her again, so they went to the camp to work on it. An unknown amount of money was handed over before Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp agreed to take her.

Persecuted and tortured in Jiamusi Forced Labor Camp

Not many days after she was admitted to the forced labor camp, the camp set about trying to "transform" over a dozen practitioners from Shuangyashan. One day, the deputy team leader, Zhang Xiaodan; the team leader, Liu Yadong; and Gao Jie ordered them to come downstairs one by one. Zhang Xiaodan tried to persuade Ms. Zhao to write the Three Statements so as to avoid the physical suffering. She did not comply. Zhang Xiaodan tripped her, she fell to the floor, and several female officers swarmed around to tie her back to the iron bed. A group of people put a pre-written copy of the "Three Statements" in front of her and ordered her to sign it. They did not release her until they were afraid that something might happen to her, but they did use her hand (after she had lost consciousness) to make some strokes over the three statements, and then said it was OK.

"Big Back Handcuff" is a torture method in which one hand comes down over one shoulder and the other comes up from below before they are cuffed together. As the arms are pulled apart, the handcuffs get closer and closer. As a result, the handcuffs cut into the flesh and blood does not get to the arms. If this form of torture is carried out for three months, the arms will be completely disabled. Those in charge were aware of this, so to keep from disabling their victims but still cause them torturous pain, the female officers kept moving their arms or opening the handcuffs to make their victims change positions and move their arms. Opening the handcuffs was an excruciatingly painful experience. Sometimes, it took quite a while for them to open the cuffs. Then the victim had to change to a new position to be handcuffed again. The pain could hardly be expressed. Sometimes it was so painful that the victims lost consciousness.

In the winter of 2003, practitioners Ms. Zhao Juan, Wang Yuhong, Deng Chunxia, and Yu Haiyan refused to recite four sentences before each meal. Deputy Director Chen Chunmei gave orders for them to stay outside the cafeteria and not eat or go to the restroom. Other practitioners brought meals from the cafeteria, but Chen Chunmei stopped them. This torture lasted for three days. The practitioners were getting very weak. Every day, they were supervised by the guards, who also instigated the prisoners to purposely make things difficult for the practitioners.

In March 2004, since they did not do the drills and did not shout the slogans, the practitioners were kept under strict surveillance by Team Eight. At the beginning, every day they had to sit on a small stool from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m. They had to keep their hands on their knees, and they were not allowed to change positions. The prisoners did not leave a single step to keep surveillance over them. Every day, at 5 a.m., noon, and 8 p.m. only, they were allowed to go to the restroom. Team leader He Qiang wrote slogans that defamed Falun Dafa on the wall, and Sun Limin threatened, "If you do not join the drill, I will write your master's name on the floor and order your people to walk on it." On the morning of February 19, all the practitioners tore all the slogans off the wall. In the morning when the guards changed shifts, team leader Hong Wei, a female team leader, and all the male guards went into the cells in a great rage. They used electric batons to shock the practitioners, creating coin-sized blisters all over their backs. Some were rendered incontinent. Ms. Zhao was crawling over the floor as a result of the electric shocks. The pointed electric batons scratched their faces until they bled. All the practitioners that had protested were handcuffed to the bed and forced to give up.

In April 2004, the forced labor camp ordered Ms. Zhao Juan to write a contract to help "transform" the other practitioners before they would consider releasing her. She refused to write it. Team leader Hong Wei, deputy leader Jiang Jianan, and officer Hou Li made her go to the office, where they handcuffed her. This time, she was unable to raise her right arm after the torture. It was only after she came home and did the exercises that she recovered.

Non-stop persecution

Because Ms. Zhao Juan is persistent in practicing Falun Gong, she has been arrested very often and harassed for no reason over the past 10 years.

On January 11, 2006, her colleagues at school clarified the truth in class and were arrested. The anti-Falun Gong team of the Shuangyashan City Public Security Bureau tried to arrest Ms. Zhao Juan. When they came to the school on January 11^th, they forced her colleague to deceive Ms. Zhao, who was running an errand, to come back to the school. The security section of the No.1 Public Security Bureau of Shuangyashan City and about seven officers from the anti-Falun Gong team, including Du Zhanyi and Yao Xiaoguang, carried a camcorder and searched Ms. Zhao's office and home. Although they did not find anything, they still took her to the Public Security Bureau. Because of the long-term persecution, she suffered from severe heart problems.

In the Public Security Bureau, she fell down on the stairs because of the sudden recurrence of her heart problem. When Du Zhanyi saw this, he put several blood pressure pills into her mouth and also pressed the Renzhong acupressure point. After Ms. Zhao opened her eyes, despite her condition, they carried her from the eighth floor to the ground floor, and took her to the detention center. Since she was not able to walk, they ordered Yao Xiaoguang to carry her inside. At the detention center, she went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution. Because of her severe heart problem, this was very dangerous. The detention center officials were afraid to shoulder the responsibility, so they rushed her to the hospital. They asked the anti-Falun Gong team to release her immediately, but Du Zhanyi still refused. It was only after the doctor said that her life was in danger that they sent her back to her family.

On the morning of January 15, 2008, the Shuangyashan City Public Security Bureau instigated police officers Peng Jianqiu and Zhang Hongwei to arrest Ms. Zhao at her workplace for no reason. After that, four officers ransacked her home. Since they could not find any evidence against her, they had to release her.

Officers Gao Qiang, Liu Wanshan, Wu Zengjun, and others from the Wohongqiao Police Substation in Shuangyashan City went to Ms. Zhao's home to harass her on sensitive dates or whenever they received directives from their superiors. The Shuangyashan Municipal Education Board also arranged to keep up surveillance on Ms. Zhao's everyday life. It is hard to imagine how much spiritual suffering Ms. Zhao Juan has had to endure over the past ten years.