(Minghui.org) A 59-year-old man in Jiyuan City wasn't released on medical parole until he was diagnosed with late-stage liver cancer. He died 18 days after returning home.

Mr. Lu Yankun was a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. He was one of the practitioners who met with the then-Prime-Minister on April 25, 1999, to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong.

Mr. Lu went to the capital city of Zhengzhou in November 2002 and worked with other practitioners to intercept TV signals to broadcast uncensored information about Falun Gong. He was arrested in July 2003 but escaped half a month later. The Zhengzhou police arrested him again soon afterward and sentenced him to three years in prison.

Mr. Lu was arrested in his hometown in January 2015 and held at a local detention center for 19 months before being secretly sentenced to six years in prison. He was admitted to Zhengzhou Prison in early 2017.

The prison notified Mr. Lu's family on April 4, 2018, that he had been diagnosed with hepatic ascites. When his family visited him, they noticed his yellow complexion and swollen belly. It was apparent that he had been suffering from the symptoms for a long time, but the prison didn't inform the family in a timely manner.

Mr. Lu's family received a call on April 14 telling them to go see him in Xinmi Hospital. A doctor told them that he had late-stage liver cancer and that he could die at any time. Only then did the prison approve his medical parole. He was taken home that night and died 18 days later, on May 2.

Related Report:Falun Gong Practitioner in Critical Condition after Years of Imprisonment and Abuse