(Minghui.org) A 78-year-old woman serving a three-year term for practicing Falun Gong was recently taken to the prison hospital, after experiencing extremely high blood pressure.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhang Yun is a resident of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, and has been repeatedly targeted for upholding her faith. She has been arrested a total of four times since the pandemic broke out in late 2019, on December 4, 2019, March 12, 2020, August 20, 2020, and December 23, 2020.
She was detained for 15 days after her first arrest. Her second and third arrests saw her detained for one day and then placed on residential surveillance at home both times. Following her latest arrest on December 23, 2020, she was released on the night of her arrest but ordered to report to the court for a hearing the next morning. She was taken to Shenyang City First Detention Center right after the hearing. The Hongqu Court later sentenced her to a three-year prison term, running from December 25, 2020 to December 22, 2023.
Ms. Zhang was blind in her right eye and had very poor vision in her left eye. In order to send her to the prison sooner, the detention center arranged two eye surgeries in November 2021 without her family’s knowledge. According to insiders, the two surgeries failed to improve her vision. She was isolated in the detention center after the surgeries.
Ms. Zhang was transferred to the Liaoning Province No. 2 Women’s Prison on December 21, 2021. Starting in February 2022, the prison authorities denied her family visitation, citing the pandemic as an excuse. While most inmates can make two calls to their families each month, Ms. Zhang has never been allowed to call her family. Her family has repeatedly contacted the prison, but to no avail.
According to an insider, inmates in the third ward, where Ms. Zhang was detained, were ordered to make an exceedingly large number of personal protection gowns starting in April 2022, and all of them felt exhausted. It’s not clear whether Ms. Zhang was forced to do the unpaid labor.
Ms. Zhang’s family also learned that she had difficulty eating due to issues with her teeth. She had a stomachache after eating rice and has vomited many times. The guards assigned two inmates to monitor her, and they were ordered to follow her when she used the restroom. Not wanting to disturb their sleep at night, Ms. Zhang avoided drinking water during the day, so she wouldn’t have to use the restroom at night.
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