(Minghui.org) An 83-year-old Luzhou City, Sichuan Province resident was admitted to the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison in mid-February 2023 to serve a two-year term for her faith in Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Since June 2021, staff members from the Jiangyang District Court have repeatedly come to Ms. Zhao Zhaoquan’s home and took her to do various physical examinations. One day, she was sent home with all sorts of tubes hooked to her body, including one that monitored her heartbeat. She felt uncomfortable and pulled out the tubes. When a court staff member took her back to the hospital the next day to read the result, the doctor said the result wasn’t accurate and he had to do the test again.
Ms. Zhao was last taken away for a physical examination on November 10, 2021, but she never returned home. Her family received a letter from her on December 24, 2021. She said that when the court staff members, surnamed Li and Fang, came on the morning of November 10, they told her that if all the results looked good, they wouldn’t take her to do any more physicals in the future. They also bought breakfast for Ms. Zhao, as she hadn’t had anything to eat that morning.
After two hospitals confirmed that Ms. Zhao was perfectly healthy, the court staff members took Ms. Zhao to the Hejiang County Detention Center for a 14-day quarantine. She was later transferred to the Luzhou City Detention Center, where she was held before her prison transfer in mid-February 2023.
Ms. Zhao’s family was very worried about her and sought her release, only to be told that she had been sentenced to two years.
Ms. Zhao’s family learned from an insider that her health has rapidly declined while in custody. She is relying on other incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners to take care of her. A person familiar with her case told the family that because she is a political prisoner for her faith in Falun Gong, there is no way for them to get her out. Another official directly told the family that they could just wait to pick up Ms. Zhao’s ashes.
Ms. Zhao, a retired elementary school teacher, has been held in detention centers and brainwashing centers multiple times since the onset of the persecution in 1999. She was given two labor camp terms, once for 2 years and again for 3 years, as well as being sentenced to prison for 2.5 years. Due to her health, she was denied admission and exempt from serving the 3-year labor camp and the 2.5-year prison terms. That eventually prompted that she be examined carefully prior to her latest sentencing, as the court intends to make sure that she is imprisoned this time.
Related reports:
83-year-old Woman Taken Away for Physical Examination, Only to Be Secretly Sentenced to Two Years
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