(Minghui.org)
Chinese name: 冀德莲Gender: FemaleAge: 79City: TaiyuanProvince: ShanxiOccupation: NoneDate of Death: Mid-October 2021Date of Most Recent Arrest: June 22, 2017Most Recent Place of Detention: Yuci Women’s Prison
A Taiyuan City, Shanxi Province, woman passed away in mid-October 2021, a year after she was released from a three-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Ji Delian was 79.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Ji was arrested on May 21, 2014, while handing out Falun Gong informational materials. Although she was soon released on bail, she was arrested again on May 18, 2015, for attending the trial of another local Falun Gong practitioner. The police released her around midnight and put her under house arrest the very next day.
The police started to harass Ms. Ji and her family again on September 10, 2015, after she filed a criminal complaint against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong.
Ms. Ji was tried by the Wanbailin Court on November 13, 2015. Judge Li Zhiqiang said to her daughter the day before the trial, “Tell your mother to cooperate with us. Don’t think that she won’t be sentenced because she is in her 70s. Now the age limit has been increased to 75!”
In court, Ms. Ji shared how her uterine cancer disappeared just three months after she began practicing Falun Gong more than 20 years ago and how the practice helped her to become a better person.
In her own defense, Ms. Ji said, “Falun Gong teaches us to be good people and to always consider others first. I was hit by a van in 2012, and the driver took me to the hospital. My hips were severely dislocated and my pelvis was fractured in three places. It took more than 20 stitches to sew up the injury to my arm and more to close the cut on my left eyelid. My face was badly injured and swollen.”
She told the court that she knew in her heart that she would be fine. Four days later, all the swelling and inflammation disappeared, and she was discharged from the hospital on the sixth day.
“After I got home, I contacted the driver and gave him back the 8,000 yuan he left to pay my medical bills. I wouldn’t have done that if I had not practiced Falun Gong.”
The judge stopped her from talking more and soon adjourned the hearing. Ms. Ji was allowed to return home after the session.
Ms. Ji was later sentenced to three years in prison but was allowed to serve time at home after the local detention center denied her admission due to her physical condition.
Ms. Ji appealed her sentence to the Taiyuan Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original sentence on May 18, 2016. At the age of 73, Ms. Ji had to live away from home to avoid being imprisoned.
Ms. Ji returned home a year later, only to be arrested on June 22, 2017, when she went to the Ximing Police Station to renew her ID. She was first held in Geliao Detention Center and then taken to the Yuci Women’s Prison.
During her three-year term, her children made 1,000-yuan monthly deposits for her and often sent food to her. Sometimes the inmates would tell them that Ms. Ji wanted to have beef, and they would send that soon. When Ms. Ji was later released, her family was surprised to learn that she was never given any of the food they sent her.
Ms. Ji became incapacitated in 2019 due to torture. Yet the two inmates assigned to monitor her still constantly beat and verbally abused her.
When she was released in 2020, she weighed less than 70 lbs. Her abdomen was sunken and was bruised. As she was too weak to recall what had happened to her in the prison, her family didn’t know what torture she suffered. After struggling with poor health for a year, she passed away in October 2021.
Prior to her latest prison term, Ms. Ji was arrested in 1999 when she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. The police chief slapped her in the face repeatedly and kicked her. She was released after the police extorted 800 yuan out of her family.
Ms. Ji was detained in a brainwashing center in the village and also served one year in a forced labor camp in December 2000, also for practicing Falun Gong.
Terrified by the persecution she suffered, her daughter-in-law, Ms. Zhou Laxiang, who practiced Falun Gong before, stopped practicing. She later had a stroke and became incapacitated.
Although Ms. Zhou resumed practicing Falun Gong in 2011 and saw improvement in her health, the police harassed her again in 2015, causing her condition to further deteriorate. She passed away on October 15, 2015. She was 54.
Related reports:
Elderly Woman Confined After Seeing Her Daughter-in-law Die as Result of Persecution
Five Septuagenarians Given Prison Sentences by Same Court for Upholding Faith
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