(Minghui.org) A father in his 90s fell ill and became bedridden in mid-August 2020, two months after he was denied a visit to his 50-year-old daughter, who has been held incommunicado for over a year and secretly sentenced to 5 years in prison for her faith in Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Li Qian, of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, went to the local police station on September 2, 2019, after she suspected the police of monitoring her because she practiced Falun Gong. She urged the police not to participate in the Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong and gave them some informational materials on her way out.

Upon seeing the materials, the police interrogated her about the source and then brought her back home and ransacked her residence. Her laptop, Falun Gong books, and materials were confiscated. She was then taken to the Kunming City Detention Center.

The police didn’t inform Ms. Li’s elderly father of her arrest. After he learned about it a few days later from an acquaintance, the elderly man went to the police station to demand her release, only to be given a detention notice. He has never received any updates about her case since, nor has he been allowed to visit her.

Ms. Li was secretly sentenced to five years and fined 10,000 yuan by the Xishan District Court on April 24, 2020.

An insider who sympathized with Ms. Li’s case hired a lawyer for her in June 2020 to help her appeal the verdict. When the lawyer went to the detention center, he learned that Ms. Li had already been taken to the Yunnan Province No.2 Women’s Prison on June 20, 2020.

After the lawyer informed Ms. Li’s father of her situation, the elderly man went to the prison to visit her. But the guards, who claimed that he didn’t have a letter from the local police station proving he was Ms. Li’s father, refused to allow him to see her. Nor did they let him deposit money for her to buy daily necessities either.

This isn’t the first time that Ms. Li has been persecuted for her faith. She was given two years of forced labor on January 1, 2000, and sentenced to three years on January 19, 2009.