(Minghui.org) Ms. Wang Yuhe developed severe high blood pressure and thrombus (blood clots in the brain) while serving a three-year term for practicing Falun Gong, but the prison authorities have refused to release her on medical parole.
According to Item 5 of Article 1 in “Opinions on Further Regulating Temporary Implementation of Serving Time Outside of Prison,” prisoners over 65 years old may be released on parole and serve time outside of prison if they cannot do any of the following five daily activities: eat, turn over, use the restroom, dress, and walk.
Ms. Wang, 82, has become paralyzed on one side of her body and unable to take care of herself. She definitely meets the requirements for parole and serving time outside of prison, but the prison authorities threatened to revoke her family’s visiting privileges when her daughter, Ms. Sun Caiyan, also a Falun Gong practitioner, submitted an application to have her released on medical parole.
Ms. Wang and Ms. Sun, both of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, are widowed. Ms. Sun’s husband, who also practiced Falun Gong, died at 51 in 2021 after repeated detention and torture for his faith. He was predeceased by his father and father-in-law (Ms. Wang’s husband), who died in 2016 and 2019, respectively, after living in fear when their loved ones were persecuted.
Ms. Sun now worries that she will lose her mother to the persecution as well.
Ms. Sun recalled when her mother was still young, she suffered from a herniated disc and sciatica. She tried all kinds of treatments but to no avail. Shortly after she began to practice Falun Gong in 1996, she recovered and took on many household chores.
When the persecution started in 1999, the authorities often came to harass them. Fearing being targeted, her father forced her mother to renounce Falun Gong. But not long after, Ms. Wang began to lose her sight in one eye. She went to see a doctor of Chinese medicine, but after taking the medicine prescribed, she couldn’t move her legs. Worried about her health, her husband agreed that she could practice Falun Gong again. In less than a week, she recovered.
Because Ms. Wang has benefited so much from practicing Falun Gong, she remains committed, so the authorities have targeted her repeatedly.
Ms. Sun said, “I’ve heard that those detained in the same ward as my mother are also elderly practitioners in their 70s, 80s, or even close to 90. They are like my mother who has been sentenced for upholding her faith. I worry about my mother every day. With her severe symptoms and the poor conditions in the prison, I don’t know how she can survive. I really worry if one day she can’t take it anymore and collapses. She could die at any time!”
Arrest and Sentencing
Ms. Wang’s latest ordeal stemmed from her arrest on July 21, 2014, when she accompanied her husband to the local dental hospital to install a crown. The police also arrested Ms. Sun on the same day. Both of their homes were ransacked.
While Ms. Wang was released on bail on August 19 that year, Ms. Sun remained in custody and was sentenced to three years and three months by the Shahekou District Court. She was taken to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on June 30, 2015. A day later, Ms. Wang was sentenced to three years by the same court. Due to her high blood pressure and stroke symptoms, she wasn’t required to start serving time immediately. To avoid being taken to prison, she decided to live away from home and went into hiding.
After living elsewhere for three years, Ms. Wang returned home in 2018. The police and residential committee staff members soon found out about it and began to harass her.
Ms. Wang’s husband was in poor health and relied on her for care. Due to the arrests, detention, and harassment of his wife and daughter, he wasn’t well cared for and was under tremendous pressure and fearful. His health declined until he passed away in 2019. Two years after his death, Ms. Sun’s husband, Mr. Guo Qi, also died due to the mental pressure of the persecution.
Although judge Li Bianjiang who sentenced Ms. Wang in 2015 had retired, his successor Sun Xihe ordered the bailiff to take Ms. Wang back into custody. On October 14, 2021, Liu Yu and another officer from the Heishijiao Police Station arrested Ms. Wang at her daughter’s home. When Ms. Sun went to the court to demand the release of her mother, judge Sun refused to allow it and claimed that he was just following the law.
After spending two and a half months in the detention center, Ms. Wang was transferred to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison on December 31, 2021.
Every time when Ms. Sun went to visit Ms. Wang, she was always so weak that she had to be wheeled out to the entrance of the visitors’ room. She then stood up and walked slowly on her own to the visitor’s window.
The social security office started to suspend Ms. Wang’s pension in April 2023, citing a new policy that Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned for their faith aren’t entitled to any retirement benefits, even though no Chinese labor law has such a stipulation.
When Ms. Sun went to the prison to visit Ms. Wang again on June 14, 2023, she was devastated to see that Ms. Wang had trouble walking. Her shoes were too big for her. Ms. Wang told her daughter that she’d been punished for not finishing her meals. She bought a new pair of shoes, but they hadn’t arrived yet. Not wanting Ms. Wang to continue talking about the abuses she suffered, the guards ended the meeting in ten minutes.
Ms. Sun applied to the prison on August 9, 2023, to have Ms. Wang released on medical parole, but a guard surnamed Li turned her down. She also threatened to forbid Ms. Sun from calling or visiting Ms. Wang if she mentioned anything related to Falun Gong in the call or during the visit.
Daughter and Her Late Husband Persecuted
While worrying about her mother in prison, Ms. Sun also has her own sad story to tell in the persecution of her shared faith in Falun Gong. Prior to her own arrest and sentencing in 2014, Ms. Sun and her husband had already endured over ten years of suppression and terror.
In August 1999, Ms. Sun, her then fiancé Mr. Guo, and several other practitioners were arrested for doing the Falun Gong exercises outdoors. The police forced Mr. Guo’s father to sign statements on his behalf to renounce Falun Gong and promise not to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. While Mr. Guo was released, Ms. Sun was taken to a drug rehab center and detained until October that year.
Mr. Guo and Ms. Sun got married after Ms. Sun was released. In January 2000, they went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and were arrested again. Similar to the time before, Mr. Guo was released after his parents paid the police a big fine and Ms. Sun was detained for a few more weeks.
Mr. Guo was at home on a break on February 19, 2001, when his manager at work called and asked him to come to the office. He went, only to be arrested by the police officers who were waiting for him. At 2 a.m. the next day, the police went to his home and opened the door with the key they’d confiscated from him.
Despite the fact that Ms. Sun was nine months pregnant and due on March 15, the police still attempted to arrest her. She was terrified, squatting on the floor and crying, “What do you want to do in the middle of the night? Can’t you let us live a normal life?” The police relented and didn’t arrest her.
At dawn, Ms. Sun decided to leave home to avoid being arrested. When the police came back at 8 a.m., she was already gone. They searched the couple’s place and took their meditation mats and incense burner.
Mr. Guo was later given a secret three-year labor camp term—it took his family a great deal of effort to find out where he was.
Two months after Ms. Sun gave birth, she and her mother-in-law went to the labor camp with the baby to visit Mr. Guo. The guards ordered them to sign their names on a piece of paper that slandered Falun Gong’s founder or else they could not visit. Ms. Sun refused to sign the statement, but Mr. Guo’s mother, who badly missed her son and didn’t practice Falun Gong, signed it and went inside with the baby to see Mr. Guo.
To try to force Mr. Guo to renounce Falun Gong, the guards stripped him and whipped him with a spiked club, shocked his sensitive parts with several electric batons, and force-fed him. He was covered with scabies. He also had generalized edema, as well as difficulty breathing and urinating.
The guards took Mr. Guo to a hospital in February 2002. The doctor found he had acute glomerulonephritis (inflammation of the tiny filters in the kidneys) and said he could die at any time. The guards called his family. As soon as they arrived, the guards fled, leaving his family to pay his medical bill.
After 19 days of treatment, Mr. Guo was discharged and returned home. The guards kept harassing him and attempted to take him back to the labor camp. To avoid further persecution, Mr. Guo and Ms. Sun moved out by themselves and didn’t dare to return home to visit their parents and their newborn daughter.
The couple didn’t return home until 2008. By then, Mr. Guo’s father was already suffering severely with Parkinson’s. With the couple’s meticulous care, he improved a lot. But the elderly man was dealt a heavy blow when Ms. Sun and her mother were arrested on July 21, 2014, and he became completely bedridden. Mr. Guo was the only one left at home to take care of his own father and father-in-law, as well as his 13-year-old daughter and 5-year-old son. His father never recovered and passed away in June 2016.
The day before Ms. Sun’s prison term ended in October 2017, Mr. Guo was summoned to the police station, where the police ordered him to bring Ms. Sun to see them after she was released.
Mr. Guo didn’t comply and found a place for Ms. Sun to hide. She was so weak that she had to take a break after walking just a few steps. After Mr. Guo sent their children to school in the morning, he went to care for Ms. Sun until it was time to pick up their children.
After Ms. Sun returned home two months later, the police and residential committee staff members kept harassing them. Mr. Guo tried his best to protect Ms. Sun.
Years of bearing enormous mental pressure took a toll on Mr. Guo’s health. He came down with sepsis, his internal organs failed, and he passed away in the hospital on June 15, 2021.
Related reports:
82-year-old Woman Abused While Serving Time for Her Faith
81-year-old Woman Imprisoned to Serve a Three-year Term from Six Years Ago
A Family’s Uphill Battle to Get a Falun Gong Practitioner Released
Liaoning Man Dies After He and His Family Suffer Two Decades of Persecution
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