Name: Zhang Xuelian (章雪莲)
Most recent place of detention:Changchun Heizuizi Labor Camp (长春黑嘴子劳教所)
City: Changchun
Province: Jilin
Persecution Suffered: Beatings, torture, home ransacked, physical restraint, interrogation, imprisonment, detention
(Clearwisdom.net) Ms. Zhang Xuelian is a Falun Gong practitioner from Changchun City, Jilin Province. Police forcibly entered her home, ransacked it, and illegally arrested her on September 22, 2009. They also physically assaulted her, causing her go deaf in her left ear for several months. Ms. Zhang was later sentenced to a year of re-education through forced labor. She is still imprisoned at the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp in Changchun City.
Using the Excuse of Checking Household Registration Documents
Without showing any legal document, four police officers--Hu Zhaoming, Shan Yun, Wang Zhenbang and another policeman from the Guangfulu Police Station in Kuancheng District and the Changtong Police Station in Nanguan District, used the excuse of "checking household registration" to take Ms. Zhang into custody.
At the station, Wang Zhenbang forced Ms. Zhang to hand over her house keys to him. He then went back to her home and confiscated her personal belongings. While this was happening, more officers arrived at the station to interrogate Ms. Zhang--two of them claiming that they were from the city police department.
The police tried to implicate Ms. Zhang's family and friends during their interrogation. When she didn't cooperate with them, a policeman in his twenties covered her head with a plastic bag twice--for three to four minutes the first time and then around seven minutes the second time. When Ms. Zhang began to suffocate, she tried to take the plastic bag off, but a police officer in his forties held her hands down. She eventually had to bite through the bag in order to breathe. A third policeman then went over and slapped her twice in the face hard, causing temporary deafness in her left ear for five months.
When the police couldn't get the information they wanted from Ms. Zhang, they transferred her to the Changchun City Detention Center that same day. Fifteen days later, the police went to the detention center to show Ms. Zhang a document of release and told her that she would be released. In reality, they tricked her into getting into the police car so that they could send her to the Heizuizi Forced Labor Camp. Only then did they tell her that she had been sentenced to a year of re-education through forced labor.
