(Minghui.org) A 55-year-old resident of Dalian City, Liaoning Province has been on a hunger strike since his arrest two months ago for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.

Mr. Wang Jian is currently held at a hospital ICU and is in critical condition. But the authorities refuse to release him.

Mr. Wang was arrested on February 23, 2024, while visiting another Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Yang Shuyu. Officers from the Lijia Street Police Station raided his home and confiscated all his valuables. Weeks before his arrest, he had discovered a GPS device on his private car. In hindsight, his family believe the police must have installed the GPS to monitor his whereabouts and the people he had contact with.

This is not the first time that Mr. Wang has been targeted for his faith. He was previously arrested on July 6, 2012, and sentenced to seven years by the Shahekou District Court in June 2013. While he was serving time in Dongling Prison, his employer, the Dalian Bank, fired him. After he was released in 2018, he found a job with the Dalian Branch of Heier Group Corporation, only to be fired shortly after for talking to his clients about Falun Gong.