Ms. Zhang Zhenmin Sent to Brainwashing Centre after Serving an Eight-year Sentence

Ms. Zhang Zhenmin is a 47-year-old Falun Gong practitioner. She was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment and should have been released on May 2nd, 2010. Instead, she was sent to the Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre in Lanzhou.

On May 2nd, Zhang Zhenmin's family went to Jiuzhou Women's Prison in Gansu Province, hoping to take her home. They never anticipated that 610 Office agents (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong), police from other cities and national security officers would also be coming for her. Four cars arrived at 4:50 a.m. at the prison and took Zhang away. Adding insult to injury, the prison director pushed and hit Zhang's elderly mother, her husband Niu Wanjiang, and other family members. There were more than twenty guards at the scene, driving away her family.

Ms. Zhang's family tried to find out where she was early that morning, and found out from Gao Lina, deputy director of the political committee in the city. They didn't make it to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre until 5:00 p.m. When they asked to see Zhang Zhenmin, they were told, "There was an order from the top that the family will see Zhang only when they are notified by phone first."

Zhang Zhenmin was a worker at the Lanzhou Meat Factory. After she was sentenced by the City Court to eight years in prison, she was transferred from Xiguoyuan Detention Centre to Hualinshan Second Detention Centre, and then to Gansu Women's Prison. She was subjected to beatings, electric shocks, hanging up by the handcuffs, and other forms of torture.

In July 2004, Ms. Zhang was beaten by police because she took down a board that defamed Falun Gong. The police hung her by her handcuffed wrists, and subjected her to electric shocks and other tortures in the toilet for seven to eight days. One of her arms was severely injured in the process, and even now she finds it hard to lift her arm.

On September 16th, 2005, Niu Wanjiang, Ms. Zhang's husband, was sent to Lanzhou Prison. After his term was up, he was secretly transferred to Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre in Lanzhou for four years, by the 610 Office, Lanzhou Political Committee, and City Political Committee. Over those four years, Niu Wanjiang spent most of his time in a cell and on hunger strike. For 81 days, between October 5th and December 27th, 2007, he was hung up in a freezing cell located in the mountains. His hands and feet suffered frostbite, and there were open cuts on his feet.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/5/12/223450.html