Name: Zhang Wei (张苇)
Gender: Female
Age: 37
Address: Wuhan City, Hubei Province
Occupation: Associate Professor, School of Art and Design at Wuhan University of Technology
Date of Most Recent Arrest: November 5, 2012
Most Recent Place of Detention: Banqiao Brainwashing Center (板桥洗脑班)
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Persecution Suffered: Detention, brainwashing, handcuffed and shackled, hung up, interrogation, beatings, sleep deprivation, deprived of food and drink, forced labor.

(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhang Wei was taken to Banqiao Brainwashing Center by officers from the Wuhan Domestic Security Division and security guards from Wuhan University of Technology on November 5, 2012. Her family is extremely worried about her.

This is the fifth time Ms. Zhang has been arrested, just because she firmly believes in Falun Gong and follows the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She has been brutally tortured and held in detention centers and brainwashing centers.

Ms. Zhang Wei was arrested on a street in Beijing on July 22, 1999, and Cao Shuqin, party secretary of the university, locked up Ms. Zhang for 40 days at the end of November 1999, because she practiced the Falun Gong exercises on campus. Sixteen people took turns to monitor her every day, while several people tried to persuade her to renounce her belief.

Ms. Zhang was arrested again when she went to Beijing to appeal on October 1, 2000, and was held in the Xicheng Detention Center in Beijing.

On November 7, 2000, Ms. Zhang was arrested when she was seen distributing Falun Gong materials in a residential area of the Qingshan District in Wuhan. She was held in the Wuhan First Detention Center for ten months and nineteen days, where she was brutally tortured. She was handcuffed and hung up on a steel fence twice for a total of eight days, and was left handcuffed for 50 days one time and more than 10 days for the second time. The handcuffs were very tight and cut into her flesh. During an interrogation, a guard slapped Ms. Zhang in the face, and in the winter they poured Coca-Cola on her head.

Guard Liu Lianzhen made the practitioners' situation worse in the detention center by punishing inmates who showed sympathy to Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Zhang was surrounded and beaten by many inmates while she was in shackles. They pinched her nose until it bled, deprived her of sleep and forced her to stand for long periods of time. Guards at the detention center did not give her water or food. Ms. Zhang was confined to a small room, where both the door and windows were closed during the summer, and in winter the door and windows were kept open.

Practitioners held in Wuhan First Detention Center are often insulted and subjected to forced labor. They had their clothes stripped off them on snowy days and were forced to stand in the yard for a so-called “safety inspection.”

After Ms. Zhang was released, she was harassed by the local police and the party secretary of the university. They tried to send her to the Tangsunhu Brainwashing Center but failed to do so.

Since 1999, in Tsinghua University alone, more than 300 professors, teachers, PhD. and Master's students, and undergraduates were detained, expelled or directly taken to forced labor camps.

Those involved in the persecution:
Chen Shiguo, director of Wuhan 610 Office: +86-27-82402903 (Office), +86-27-87403060 (Home)
Zhao Fei, party secretary of Wuhan Politics and Law Committee and director of Wuhan Police Department: +86-27-85876666
Hu Xukun, former party secretary of Wuhan Politics and Law Committee and former director of Wuhan Police Department: +86-27-82402235
Liu Nanhua, director of Wuhan Domestic Security Division: directly in charge of Ms. Zhang Wei's case
Cai Huan, team leader of the Wuhan Domestic Security Division: directly in charge of Ms. Zhang Wei's case: +86-27-85393569 (Office), +86-13971015811 (Cell)