On June 14, 2005, Beijing Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Lianying was kidnapped by a dozen of local police who broke into her home. On June 30, she was sentenced to two-and-half-year re-education through labor. From August to mid-October 2005, Zhang suffered ceaseless beatings, insults, torture and other maltreatment at the 9th Brigade of the Tuanhe dispatch division in Beijing. On March 20, 2007, for persisting in practicing Falun Gong, she was beaten to the point of suffering massive hemorrhage in the bilateral cerebrum of her brain. As a consequence, she was sent to Renhe Hospital in Beijing’s Daxing District and has been under emergency treatment ever since.
On March 29, a Sound of Hope reporter interviewed medical staff at the department of cerebral surgery in the Renhe Hospital:
Reporter: “Is Zhang Lianying in the department of cerebral surgery?”
Nurse: “Yes!”
Reporter: “On what day was she sent over?”
Nurse: “The date of her being hospitalized? The 20th”
A nurse from the ward indicated that Zhang’s current situation is not optimistic.
Nurse: “Yes, Zhang Lianying is here. You have to ask her doctor in charge.”
Reporter: “Is she still unconscious?”
Nurse: “It is hard to say. For three to four days, she has had a little consciousness.”
The reporter subsequently phoned the Beijing Female Labor Camp.
Labor Camp personnel: “Firstly, we cannot tell you anything about her current situation. She has been sentenced to re-education through labor, so according to the regulations, she would be sent to a labor camp to serve her sentence.”
Reporter: “How is she now?”
Labor Camp personnel: “This... There are certain things that we cannot tell her direct relatives. You have to come over to take a look yourself.”
At the beginning of this year, Zhang’s husband Niu Jinping, had gone to the Beijing Female Labor Camp many times with their 3-year-old daughter, demanding to see her. But he was blocked by the administrative section of the labor camp each time. On March 27, Niu went to the hospital and saw his wife. In the three short minutes during which he saw his wife, Niu learned some information about how she had been tortured in the labor camp.
Niu Jinping told the Sound of Hope reporter, “She said that she had been beaten nine times those few days. Each time they used a belt to strangle her, and when she could not breathe, they then gave her bashes and kicks. They kicked wherever she was injured.”
“I went to the hospital to see my wife. At the beginning I had trouble recognizing her, as she was so thin from being on hunger strike. She had been detained there for one year and nine months, and she had been on a hunger strike for most of the time. From August to mid-October, they beat her continuously. During that time she had been bound to a bed board, and I was even not allowed to see her. I thought she had died. She was beaten so badly that her body was tortured to the point of being black all over. On February 27, she was sent to the hospital.”
At present, Zhang remains hospitalized and still in a critical condition.
Editor’s note: Zhang’s husband, Niu Jinping, was one of two Falun Gong practitioners who met with Edward McMillan-Scott , Vice-President of the Europeant Parliament in 2006.
