Name: Zhang Zhifen (张志芬)
Gender: Female
Age: 55
Address: Hechuan District, Chongqing City
Occupation: Retiree from Chongqing Fourth Cotton Mill
Date of Most Recent Arrest: January 2009
Most recent place of detention: Wangxiangtai Brainwashing Center (望乡台洗脑班 )
City: Chongqing
Persecution Suffered: Detention, brainwashing, sleep deprivation, force-feeding, beatings, forced labor
Key Persecutors: 610 Office, Nanjin Neighborhood Committee personnel Chen Shi and Cai Kuojun (南津街道办事处陈实、蔡扩军)

(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zhang Zhifen from the Hechuan District of Chongqing, 55, is a retiree from the Chongqing Fourth Cotton Mill. Soon after she started practicing Falun Gong in 1997, her multiple illnesses, including headaches and heart disease, disappeared.

During the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) over-a-decade-long persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Zhang has been sent to brainwashing centers three times, kept in detention three times, and sentenced to forced labor three times.

In early March 2000, personnel from the security section at her workplace, and police from the Dongjin Police Station, arrested Ms. Zhang, sent her to the Dongjintuo brainwashing center for 20 days, and charged her 600 yuan (USD$94) for room and board. In early July 2000, they arrested her again and sent her to the same brainwashing center for 15 days.

The police arrested her and took her to the Hechuan Police Department for interrogation on July 15, 2003. Domestic Security Section officer Qin Maorong ordered police officer Zhang Xiangqiang to hit Ms. Zhang’s head with a thick book and viciously slap her face. The police sent her to the Hechuan Detention Center and kept her there for more than 30 days, and then sent her to the Maojiashan Women’s Forced Labor Camp for a year.

In late January 2007, the police arrested her and held her at the Hechuan Detention Center again. In protest Ms. Zhang held a hunger strike. On the sixth day of her hunger strike, the authorities force-fed her. Several men held her down and inserted a tube into her stomach, almost suffocating her. After 20 days in the detention center, the police sent her to the Jiangbei District Shimahe Women’s Forced Labor Camp for a year and a half.

The police took her to the Huchuan Domestic Security Team in late January 2009. During the interrogation, team head Lan Qifeng slapped her vigorously while another police officer kicked her legs and feet mercilessly, leaving bruises all over her legs. After they sent her to Hechuan Detention Center for the third time and detained her for 15 days, they sent her to the Shimahe Women’s Forced Labor Camp again and kept her there for a year and three months.

Ms. Zhang was subjected to inhumane torture in the labor camp. In winter, the guards forced her to sleep on the floor or stand outside for prolonged periods of time. In summer, they forced her to stand in the sun for hours. They only allowed her to sleep two hours and sometimes only one hour per day. She was sometimes not allowed to sleep at all, and forced to stand all night. She finally collapsed and went into a coma due to extreme fatigue.

One day Ms. Zhang refused to wear the inmate badge. For this guard Chen Yanyan instigated inmates Lai Lixia and others to corner her in a room and beat her. When Ms. Zhang shouted “Falun Dafa is good!” the inmates rushed at her, pushed her into a big box in the corner of the room, and sealed her mouth with tape. They didn’t let her out until she had nearly died from suffocation.

Ms. Zhang’s hair has turned grey due to the brutal persecution in the labor camp, and her health has also deteriorated.

Her term expired in April 2010 and she was supposed to return home, but Chen Shi and Cai Kuojun, from the Nanjin Neighborhood Committee, instead sent her to the Yubei District Wangxiangtai Brainwashing Center. Ms. Zhang held a hunger strike to protest and finally returned home six days later.

After she returned home in Hechuan, 610 Office agents and the neighborhood committee personnel often harassed her and her family. Ms. Zhang could not bear it and had to leave home and live in exile. The 610 Office agents were still looking for her at the time of this writing, and are calling her family often to harass them.