Family Continuously Threatened Three Years After 77-Year-Old Man’s Death While Imprisoned for Practicing Falun Gong
(Minghui.org) Mr. Han Junde died on April 14, 2022, while serving an eight-year term at the Jidong No. 5 Prison in Hebei Province for practicing Falun Gong. Three years have passed but his body is still in a morgue—the prison authorities repeatedly refused to provide his family with the information needed to uncover the true cause of his death.
Mr. Han Junde
Mr. Han, 77, from Baoding City, Hebei Province was arrested on August 30, 2019 and sentenced to eight years in February 2020. After losing his appeal three months later, he was admitted to the Jidong No. 5 Prison in June 2020. Due to the abuse in prison, he developed severe anemia and became blind in one eye and had to be moved around in a wheelchair. The prison did not give him any medical care until after March 2021. They also ordered his family to pay 10,000 yuan to cover his treatments. His loved ones requested he be released on medical parole but their request was refused.
Because Mr. Han refused to renounce Falun Gong, the prison guards refused to submit his motion to reconsider his case to higher authorities as required by law. They denied his family visitation rights and did not allow them any other form of communication besides three phone calls the entire time he was imprisoned. Even after he became critically ill, his family was still barred from visiting him. The prison also threatened to cremate his body without the family’s consent if he died.
After Mr. Han died, his family requested to see his medical records, autopsy report, surveillance videos and other relevant information. The prison refused to provide the requested information and the family refused to back down, believing that his death was a result of the torture he sustained in the prison. The prison sent his body to a morgue.
The family approached various government agencies but they were given the runaround.
The prison appointed a new warden in May 2024. The warden began pressuring Mr. Han’s family to agree to have his body cremated. They refused and the warden threatened to have them cover all the costs involved in keeping the body in the morgue.
The warden also harassed Mr. Han’s two sons-in-law and threatened to jeopardize their jobs. Mr. Han’s younger daughter’s husband could not endure the pressure when he was told that their daughter might not be allowed to sit for college exam. He wanted to divorce her to avoid being implicated. His wife pleaded with her mother, who lived with them after Mr. Han passed away, to move back to her own home.
Despite the threats, Mr. Han’s wife vowed to keep seeking justice for him. She said Falun Gong restored his health—who had 80% of his stomach removed before he took up the practice in 1997. But the persecution and torture while he was in custody ruined his health and led to his death. She said those involved in his persecution should be held accountable.
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