(Minghui.org) A 73-year-old man who was secretly sentenced to 4.5 years for his faith in Falun Gong has been denied family visits since his arrest 2.5 years ago. His family recently learned that he is suffering from high blood pressure and refuses to talk. They urged the prison guards not to torture him.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Chen Xi’nan, a Xiangyang City, Hubei Province resident who lived on his own, suddenly went missing on September 3, 2019. His family later learned from his neighbors that he was carried out by several officers at around 7: 30 p.m. on September 3, with only a vest and shorts on. Upon hearing him shouting “Falun Dafa is good” to protest the arrest, his neighbors opened the door to see what was happening. They also saw the police car parking outside of their apartment building.
Mr. Chen’s family later learned that he was held at the Xiangyang City No.2 Detention Center. When they went to visit him, the authorities denied their request, citing the pandemic as an excuse.
In June 2020, when no more positive COVID-19 cases were reported in the region, Mr. Chen’s family went to the detention center to deliver clothes and daily necessities to him. They were surprised to learn that he had already been transferred away, but the guards refused to reveal where he was taken.
Only around February 2021 did Mr. Chen’s family find out he was sentenced to 4.5 years with a 5,000 yuan fine and had been taken to the Fanjiatai Prison. Yet they never received any notice regarding his trial or verdict.
The family went to the prison to make a cash deposit for him to buy daily necessities, but the guards wouldn’t let them create an account for him. The guards said Mr. Chen refused to talk after being taken to the prison. The family urged the guards not to abuse him. They said he used to be deaf and had late-stage stomach cancer, both of which went away after he started practicing Falun Gong. They said there would be no way for him to give it up, even if the guards tortured him.
In February 2022, the prison guards sent a message to Mr. Chen’s family through a community worker that he was doing well and that they would arrange a video chat between them whenever possible. But his family never heard back from the guards after that. Because they haven’t seen Mr. Chen in person for nearly three years, they are very worried about his well-being, especially after a guard called them on March 30, 2022, and told them that Mr. Chen now had high blood pressure.
Past Persecution
Mr. Chen, a former employee of an aerospace lifesaving equipment company, suffered a severe stomach ulcer in the 1990s. The ulcer later progressed into late-stage stomach cancer. He was unable to eat and the hospitals’ treatment had no effect on him. A few months after he began to practice Falun Gong in 1997, he completely recovered.
After the onset of the persecution, Mr. Chen went to Beijing in November 1999 and June 2000 to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. He was arrested both times, taken back to Xiangyang, and held at the local detention center and brainwashing center. In 2001, he was given a labor camp term and forced to work long hours without pay.
While he was in custody, he was often hung up, beaten, and shocked by electric batons. The guards also burnt his legs and arms with a lighter and pinched his private part. When he held a hunger strike to protest the persecution, they force-fed him. After he was released, his workplace only gave him 200 yuan of subsidy each month.
Mr. Chen was arrested in April 2008 for doing the Falun Gong exercises in a public plaza. He was sentenced to three years and five months in the Fanjiatai Prison. The guards beat him and stepped on his body, especially his abdomen. Many of his organs were injured from the beating. After he lost consciousness, they carried him to his bed. When he woke up the next day, blood was all over his bed and blanket.
Mr. Chen was fired by his workplace while he was still serving time in 2008. With no source of income, he had to buy social security insurance on his own after he was released in August 2008, in order to receive minimum coverage for his daily life.
Less than a year later, he was arrested one more time in May 2012 for talking to people about Falun Gong and given ten days of administrative detention.
Following a group arrest of local Falun Gong practitioners in July 2015, Mr. Chen talked to the police and urged them to release the practitioners, only to be arrested himself. He held a hunger strike for over ten days to protest the persecution and suffered extremely high blood pressure. Fearing that he might die in the detention center, the police released him and put him on house arrest.
Mr. Chen went to the countryside to distribute informational materials about Falun Gong in June 2016 and was reported. While he escaped from being arrested, he was forced to live away from home for over two years. Life was difficult for him but he still persevered in raising awareness about the persecution.
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