(Minghui.org)
Chinese Name: 蒋有容Gender: FemaleAge: 73City: Province: ChongqingOccupation: English TeacherDate of Death: December 2020Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 14, 2018Most Recent Place of Detention: Chongqing Women’s Prison
A retired English teacher in Chongqing died in December 2020, while serving time at the Chongqing Women’s Prison for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Jiang Yourong was arrested on August 14, 2018 and later sentenced by the Jiulongpo District Court. The Chongqing Women’s Prison repeatedly denied her family visitation after Ms. Jiang was taken there in June 2019, with the excuse that she refused to renounce Falun Gong.
Ms. Jiang’s family received a call from the prison in December 2020 and was told that she had respiratory failure and was being resuscitated. Her husband rushed to the prison but wasn’t allowed to see her. Not long after, he was informed that she had died. The prison only allowed him to see her body covered with a large cloth. He couldn’t tell whether there were any injuries on her body.
According to an insider, Ms. Jiang was held in the prison’s First Ward until she died. Ward director Tang Anzhi and guard Shu Yumin ordered the inmates to persecute her.
When Ms. Jiang refused to comply with the inmates’ demand to write “thought reports,” they forced her to stand for long hours, denied her restroom use, deprived her of sleep, and didn’t allow her to bathe. She was once forced to stand for over two weeks and her feet became severely swollen.
Ms. Jiang urged the inmates and guards to stop participating in the persecution. She told them that after she took up Falun Gong in 1997, many of her ailments disappeared. She had benefitted from it so much that there was no way for her to give it up.
When Ms. Jiang previously served time at the Chongqing Women’s Forced Labor Camp for practicing Falun Gong, she was severely beaten and lost her hearing. She also had severe brain edema as a result of the beating. Although she regained her hearing after being released on medical parole and resuming practicing Falun Gong at home, the condition relapsed after she was imprisoned in 2019.
The inmates often accused Ms. Jiang of pretending not to hear when they called her and used it as an excuse to torment her, especially denying her restroom use. Even when she was forced to relieve herself in her pants, they didn’t allow her to clean herself or change clothes. Then they verbally abused her and said she didn’t pay attention to personal hygiene and blamed her for being so smelly.
Ms. Jiang wore dentures and ate very slowly. The inmates refused to give her extra time to finish her meals, but took away her food after they’d finished eating. As a result, Ms. Jiang was often starved.
In the winter, the guards didn’t allow Ms. Jiang to wear a heavy jacket or warm shoes. The bedding and blanket she was given were also very thin.
A Falun Gong practitioner who was also held in the same prison said that she didn’t see Ms. Jiang during the annual physical examinations of Falun Gong practitioners in December 2019 and August 2020. She suspected that the guards kept Ms. Jiang in isolation in order to persecute her.
When another practitioner saw Ms. Jiang at the prison hospital in mid-December 2020, she was emaciated. Her face was pale and her eyes were dull. Despite the cold weather, she still wore very thin clothes and a pair of summer shoes.
Elderly Chongqing Woman Dies While Serving Time for Her Faith