Woman Dies in Custody Eight Days After Being Arrested and Denied Medical Treatment

(Minghui.org) A 69-year-old woman in Dalian City, Liaoning Province died at the Yaojia Detention Center, eight days after she was arrested for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

It’s recently confirmed by Minghui.org that Ms. Zhang Siqin began to experience severe medical condition on the first night at the detention center, yet the authorities refused to provide any treatment for her, except feeding her unknown drugs without any diagnosis.

Ms. Zhang was first arrested on November 12, 2019 while giving out calendars with information about Falun Gong near a farmers market. Wang Bin, an officer of the Paotai Police Station, ordered his subordinates to take Ms. Zhang and another practitioner to the Yaojia Detention Center. While his subordinates refused to do it, Wang insisted to take the two practitioners there.

Ms. Zhang was later released on December 10, 2019 due to a medical condition. Yet Wang and other officers of Paotai Police Station came back several times to harass her and forcibly took her for several physical examinations.

The Jinzhou District Court approved Ms. Zhang’s arrest on October 14, 2020, and sentenced her to two years with a 5,000-yuan fine on August 27, 2021.

At 6:30 p.m. on January 19, 2022, two officers, Zou and Chen, arrested Ms. Zhang again, with the excuse to take her for a physical examination in preparation for her to serve time. She was terrified and was struck with a wave of nausea. Even though the doctor advised against her detention due to her medical condition, the police insisted that she was fine and took her to the Yaojia Detention Center.

On the first evening at the detention center, Ms. Zhang was unable to walk on her own or fall asleep. The guards refused to provide her with any food. The next morning, she was so weak that she wasn’t able to put on clothes herself and had to rely on her roommate’s help.

For the next few days, she was unable to keep any food down and vomited everything she ate. The food the guards provided was only congee and steamed buns. She remained too weak to stand on her own.

When she was admitted to the detention center, the guards took away her denture. She requested several times to have it back, but the guards rejected her, which caused even more difficulty for her to eat.

With her persistent medical condition, the guards didn’t take her to see a doctor, but gave her some unknown drugs, which caused her condition to further deteriorate.

On January 25, the sixth day of her detention, Ms. Zhang began to have involuntary shaking of her body and was unable to sit up on her own. Her roommate reported it to the guards, who insisted on giving her an unknown drug, with no medical assessment. When she was unable to take the drug, the guards ordered five inmates to hold her and force feed her the drug. She became incapacitated and lost the strength to sit up afterwards.

At 2:20 a.m. on January 26, Ms. Zhang began to shake uncontrollably. The inmates in the room were all awake, yet the guards still ignored her. At 9 a.m., Ms. Zhang was taken out in a wheelchair, but was brought back in just ten minutes. The guards continued to force fed her the unknown drug.

Ms. Zhang began to have a fever around midnight. She fell in critical condition at around 2:40 a.m. The guards still refused to take her to a hospital, but ordered the inmates in her room to keep monitoring her condition.

By the morning, she had been unable to sit up even even with her roommate’s help. Although the inmates reported her situation at 7:07 a.m., the doctor still didn’t show up by 7:25 a.m. Her roommate kept calling the guards, but no one showed up either. By the time the doctor arrived at 7:30 a.m., Ms. Zhang had stopped breathing and didn’t have any blood pressure. The doctor performed resuscitation, but she didn’t have any response. The doctor called the guards at 7:34 a.m., but they didn’t answer until the doctor called the third time. Ms. Zhang was pronounced dead at 7:35 a.m. and taken out from the cell.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Chen Wenli (陈文力), head of Paotai Police Station: [phone]Liu Bo (刘波), deputy police chief: [phone]Wang Bin (王斌)

Related report:

69-year-old Woman Dies Eight Days After Being Arrested for Practicing Falun Gong