(Clearwisdom.net) [Note: The following is a condensed version of a more detailed article that appeared on minghui.ca (Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net).]
Mr. Zhang Mingfa is a Falun Gong practitioner from Daijiazhuang Village, Tanpu Town, Mengyin County, Shandong Province. He started practicing Falun Gong in 1996 and has personally witnessed Falun Gong's miraculous power through his own cultivation practice. In fact, Falun Gong has changed his family in a very profound way.
However, since Jiang Zemin and his wicked gang started the ruthless persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, Mr. Zhang Mingfa and his family frequently suffered from harassment of various kinds from the local town government. They threatened and intimated Mr. Zhang's family, confiscated Falun Gong books, and extorted money from them in the name of fines. At the end of 2000, Mr. and Mrs. Zhang went to Beijing to exercise their constitutional right to appeal for Falun Gong to the State Appeals Office. Unfortunately, they ended up being arrested by the police from their hometown Tanpu Town. A policeman named Yi Yongtai, an employee from the town government named Gong Xuefeng and four other men from Zhang's hometown surrounded Zhang and repeatedly punched and kicked him. They took him back to Tanpu Town and imprisoned him in a local brainwashing center for three months.
Mr. Zhang Mingfa has been arrested several times between 1999 and 2005, and illegally fined repeatedly for a total of 2,750 yuan because he explained to people the facts about Falun Gong and China's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Traumatized by the persecution and overcome with grief, Mr. Zhang's elderly mother died in the winter of 2003.
