(Minghui.org) Six months after Ms. Liu Fuchun was admitted to prison to serve time for her faith in Falun Gong, her family, who has been denied visitation with her, was notified that she has developed a heart problem and bile duct stones.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liu, a 56-year-old Changsha City, Hunan Province resident, was arrested on August 7, 2019 and tried by the Wangcheng District Court on June 22, 2020. She testified how she has benefited from practicing Falun Gong and denied any wrongdoing for upholding her faith.
The judge sentenced her to three years with a 10,000-yuan fine at the end of the trial. Her family never received a hard-copy notice of her verdict.
In August 2020, Ms. Liu was transferred from Changsha City No. 4 Detention Center to the Hunan Province Women’s Prison. The prison authorities have barred her family from visiting her or sending any daily necessities to her.
Between December 18, 2020 and January 15, 2021, Ms. Liu’s family received several calls from the prison guards and were asked to come to the prison to pick up a notification. The guards claimed that she has developed a heart problem and bile duct stones and asked her family to sign the notification paperwork.
Ms. Liu’s family said that she was perfectly healthy before she was arrested. They refused to sign the paperwork, suspecting that Ms. Liu has been tortured in the prison and their signature would be used against her. They are now very worried about Ms. Liu’s life, knowing that just on December 12, 2020, another practitioner, Ms. Zhang Yaqin, was tortured to death in the same prison.
Additionally, another Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Yang Wen, who was arrested on August 2, 2019 and stood trial together with Ms. Liu, was sentenced to four years and fined 20,000 yuan. It’s not clear whether she has been taken to the prison and whether she has been subjected to any abuse in custody.
