(Minghui.org) A 76-year-old man died in March 2022 while serving a four-year term for practicing Falun Gong. When Mr. Jia Chunzhen’s family inquired about the wounds around his neck, a prison guard claimed that Mr. Jia had hanged himself with his clothes.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Jia, of Linxia County, Gansu Province, was arrested in April 2020 and secretly sentenced to four years in Lanzhou Prison in late December 2020. He held a hunger strike to protest the persecution during the Chinese New Year in February 2021. When his family visited him, he had lost most of his hearing and vision.
For a year after the visit, the prison denied him family visitation, using the pandemic as an excuse.
Mr. Jia’s family received a call from the Lanzhou Prison in March 2022 and was told that he had passed away on March 18.
His family rushed to the prison and demanded to see his body. Surrounded by multiple guards, his family was given access to his body and they saw that he had wounds on his neck and arms. They asked how the wounds occurred, and a guard claimed that they were a result of Mr. Jia hanging himself.
The prison quickly cremated Mr. Jia’s body and gave his family 200 yuan to settle the case.
76-year-old Man Dies in Prison While Serving Time for His Faith