Mr. Zhang Qingjun, 61, Jilin

Name: Mr. Zhang Qingjun (???)
Gender: Male
Age: 61
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 10, 2010
Date of Most Recent Release: Died in custody
Date of Death: October 30, 2010
City: Tumen City
Province: Jilin
Most Recent Place of Detention: Yinmahe Re-education Through Labor Camp

Case details:

As 61-year-old Mr. Zhang Qingjun (???) sought to resist the forced conversion efforts, he was quickly sent from the informal brainwashing facility to a labor camp in Jilin province. According to sources inside China, he died just eight days after arriving there.

Zhang’s detention and death are tied to a reinvigorated three-year, multi-billion dollar campaign initiated in 2010 to target Falun Gong practitioners across China for intensified “transformation” efforts. The campaign was revealed in a series of internal Communist Party documents, some of them posted online, released by the Falun Dafa Information Center last month (news).

On September 10, Zhang and his wife were abducted by two officers from Shixian police station. The couple was immediately sent to a brainwashing facility located at Songlin Nursing Home. Over the following days, dozens of agents from the local Tumen City 6-10 Office, Communist Party, police, and neighborhood committee used various methods to force Zhang to “transform.”  

After nine days of refusing to renounce his faith, Zhang was transferred to Anshan Detention Center and then sent to Yinmahe Re-education Through Labor Camp (????????) for a one-year term on October 22. Eight days later, on October 30, 2010, camp personnel called his family to notify them that he had died of a sudden heart attack.

Both Mr. Zhang and his wife had been detained, sent to labor camps, and subjected to torture multiple times since 1999 because of their identity as Falun Gong practitioners. Most recently, the elderly couple was abducted in April 2008 by Shixian police officers, beaten and kicked in custody, and held at Anshan Detention Center for over two weeks. They were eventually released on May 9, 2008, but continued to repeatedly be harassed in their home. 

Mr. Zhang’s wife was reportedly released from custody in late September or early October 2010.