(Minghui.org) Ms. Li Zhongfang was constantly injected with or forced to take toxic drugs while serving a 3.5-year term for practicing Falun Gong. The 60-year-old Chengdu City, Sichuan Province resident remains in a disoriented state and struggles to care for herself after being released. Yet the authorities still kept harassing her and her family members.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Li was arrested on August 1, 2017 while buying groceries. She held a hunger strike at the Chengdu City Detention Center to protest the persecution and was force fed. According to an insider, the guards added a large amount of white powder into the food to feed her.
Ms. Li was later taken to the Qingyang District Hospital affiliated with the detention center. The guards kept her handcuffed and shackled to the bed. She was given constant IV drips, yet the nurse refused to disclose what was in it.
When Ms. Li appeared in the Qingyang District Court on April 10, 2018, she appeared to be very weak. Her body was trembling. Her lips were twitching. It took her a long time to respond to one question, yet she couldn’t talk clearly or fully express herself.
Ms. Li was later sentenced to 3.5 years and taken to the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison in Chengdu City on July 2, 2018. She was subjected to various kinds of torture and beating. The guards didn’t allow her family to visit her.
When she was taken to the Third Ward in the prison on July 11, 2018, the inmates forced her to wear the prison uniform and cut her hair. She was held in room 412, where Falun Gong practitioners who refused to renounce their faith were tortured. The inmates beat her throughout the night until early morning.
Since then, the guards began to force Ms. Li to take psychiatric drugs, with the excuse that she was mentally disoriented. They even tried to force her family to persuade her to cooperate and take the drugs. Her family refused to comply. They argued that she was perfectly healthy before being arrested, and wondered why she suffered the condition while in custody? If she was indeed sick, the prison should just release her on medical parole for her to recover. Yet the authorities rejected their parole request, with the excuse that the procedure was difficult to complete.
According to an insider, Ms. Li was forced to take the unknown drugs twice a day, every day for two years. The prison also monitored whether she swallowed the drugs through surveillance cameras. By September 2018, only two months after she was taken to the prison, she had already developed a serious mental condition. She would lie in bed drooling and spitting and was often in a daze. Her eyes were dull. She was also emaciated and weak.
When she was released in early 2021, she was unable to distinguish between day and night. She relied on her family for care. Occasionally, she uttered a few words about the torture she suffered in the prison. But she appeared to be extremely nervous and sensitive when her family asked her about the toxic injections.
Despite her condition, the agents of 610 Office harassed her from time to time. Even her relatives whom she hadn’t contacted for a long time were harassed.
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