Shanghai petitioner Zhang Dongfang was on the brink of death after being persecuted in Hei Prison in March 2025, and was subsequently rushed to the First People’s Hospital in Taizhou for emergency treatment. Since then, her medical records have included a new diagnosis of “hysteria”, which refers to a mental disorder.
Recently, Zhang Dongfang revealed to a reporter from Epoch Times through a fellow petitioner that she embarked on the path of petitioning due to a fraud case that the authorities had neglected for years and later dismissed. She experienced persecution in dark prisons twice, and as a late-stage cancer patient with disabilities, she was brought to the brink of death. After being treated at the First People’s Hospital in Taizhou, she discovered the diagnosis of “hysteria” written on the back of her medical record.
Zhang Dongfang expressed that her decision to speak out was aimed at helping ordinary people avoid facing persecution labeled as “mental illness” and to expose the dark corners where such injustices hide.
On March 4, 2025, while driving to the Hebei Xushui checkpoint with cancer patient Zheng Jiyong, who is also the head of the “Anti-Cancer Guerrilla Team” charity organization, they were surrounded and stopped by dozens of police officers on the grounds of an emergency alert related to the “Bombing Tiananmen” case issued by the Beijing Municipal Public Security Bureau.
Zheng Jiyong was immediately handcuffed illegally and transferred to the Liuli Police Station in Beijing’s jurisdiction. The transfer and handling led to a recurrence of his liver cancer. Zhang Dongfang was forcibly taken by unidentified black security guards, blindfolded, and transported overnight to a secluded dark cell in a mountainous area in Zhejiang’s Taizhou where she was illegally detained for 9 days.
As a late-stage cervical cancer patient with diabetes and intestinal obstruction, Zhang Dongfang experienced a recurrence of intestinal obstruction during her unlawful detention. She was left without food or water for 5 days and 5 nights, suffering excruciating pain on the verge of shock. Despite her repeated pleas to the black security guards for medical attention, they refused and even threatened her by saying, “Unless you die!”
On March 13, 2025, she was released from the dark prison and abandoned at the Shili Pu Bus Station in the Huangyan District of Taizhou. Her vital signs were nearly undetectable, but thanks to a Good Samaritan who called emergency services, she was taken to the First People’s Hospital in Taizhou by an ambulance.
During her emergency treatment at the First People’s Hospital in Taizhou, emergency room doctors Gao Yanyan and Liang Qinyang, who lacked qualifications in psychiatry, illegally diagnosed her with “hysteria” without conducting any professional psychiatric examinations such as brain CT scans or psychological assessments. The diagnosis was written on the back of the diagnostic report with about a third of the front left blank, in an attempt to hide the fact that she was labeled as mentally ill, fortunately, her son discovered it. Zhang Dongfang believed that the authorities in Taizhou were trying to twist the criminal fraud case she suffered into a “mental issue”.
Afterwards, Zhang Dongfang and her family searched for information about Liang Qinyang in the National Health Commission’s physician practice registration system, but found no valid information, raising suspicions that Liang Qinyang may be practicing medicine illegally.
On April 7, 2025, Zhang Dongfang underwent a psychiatric assessment at the Shanghai Mental Health Center, which concluded that she was conscious and showed no signs of abnormality.
Subsequently, Zhang Dongfang reported Dr. Liang Qinyang from the First People’s Hospital in Taizhou for practicing medicine illegally to the Huangyan District Health Bureau in Taizhou. In the bureau’s response letter, they stated that emergency room and neurology physicians had the qualifications to diagnose hysteria, and the Huangyan District Government upheld this illegal conclusion in the “Administrative Review Decision”. She believed that the authorities in Taizhou sought to distort her experience of a criminal fraud case into a “mental problem”.
On June 9, 2025, at the entrance of the National Health Commission, Zhang Dongfang accused the Health Commission of Taizhou for covering up the fake medical records from the First People’s Hospital which led to her being labeled as mentally ill. She stated, “I have not received any formal response since I complained to the Taizhou Health Commission and the Huangyan District Health Commission in April. The Health Commission in Huangyan District has repeatedly passed the buck and failed to solve the problem, leaving me in agony due to illness and frustration!”
In her report, Zhang Dongfang pointed out that all the problems stemmed from the regulatory departments’ protection and procedural stalling. Authorities such as Lin Xiaobo, the director of the Huangyan Branch of the Taizhou Public Security Bureau, continuously refused to file cases and provide legal documents, using “government actions” as a shield, and were suspected of favoritism and misconduct. Additionally, the Health Commission cooperated in fabricating false information and did not address the hospital’s illegal diagnostic practices, but rather provided a reply that protected the hospital, potentially abusing their authority.
Zhang Dongfang emphasized, “The recurrence of grave abuses by the authorities allowed the police to twice employ heinous tactics of ‘hooding’ and detaining in dark cells a terminally ill cancer patient with disabilities. Where did the false accusations of ‘Bombing Tiananmen’ originate from? This reflects a complete alienation of state power and extreme disregard for citizen rights.”
She further added, “This is an unlawful alliance across departments, from the illegal arrest by street offices, refusal of the police to file cases, to the hospital issuing fake diagnoses illegally, and the health department endorsing them, forming a vicious cycle of ‘persecution-protection’. Without tacit approval, coordination, or oversight at a higher level, such cross-system complicity is impossible.”
In May 2019, due to a fraud case involving Shao Dongning, where the police refused to take action, Zhang Dongfang began petitioning at higher levels. It took six months for the Ronan Police Station to finally file a case, backdated to May 2019 on the date of the “Notice of Filing”. During the investigation, investigating officers concocted a false debt of 70,000 yuan owed by Zhang Dongfang to fraudster Shao Dongning. Subsequently, the case was left pending for a long time.
Six years later, at the beginning of 2025, the Baoshan Sub-Bureau submitted a “Suggestion Letter” to the Baoshan District Procuratorate, which, without verifying the conclusion, issued a “Decision to Revoke the Case” based on the consultative opinion of the procuratorate. This led to Zhang Dongfang’s six years of fruitless petitioning spiraling into a case of being labeled as mentally ill.