(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old woman in Mianyang City, Sichuan Province, slipped into a coma after she allegedly “hit her head while using the restroom” in Longquanyi Women’s Prison located in Chengdu City in the same province.
Now one month after she received brain surgery, Ms. Liao Guanghui remains unconscious in the intensive care unit in Huaxi Hospital in Chengdu City. The prison guards are closely monitoring her around the clock and have threatened to take her back to the prison hospital, despite her being in critical condition.
Ms. Liao was arrested on July 20, 2019, for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. She was sentenced to three years with a 3,000-yuan fine by the Fucheng District Court on September 25, 2020.
When she was taken to the Longquanyi Women’s Prison (also known as Chengdu Women’s Prison) on January 20, 2021, Ms. Liao underwent a physical examination and was found to be in very good health.
Ms. Liao’s family received a letter on February 10. The letter was supposedly from Ms. Liao, but the handwriting was obviously not hers. In the letter, “Ms. Liao” said she was doing fine in prison, adding that she was given nice food every day and slept soundly at night.
Contrary to what was written in the letter, Ms. Liao’s family said they heard that every Falun Gong practitioner taken to the prison was subjected to torture in the first month, including sleep deprivation, denial of restroom use, and intensive brainwashing. Especially for those who stayed firm in their faith, the torture would be further intensified.
A month later, at around 5 a.m. on March 10, Ms. Liao’s family received a call from a prison guard asking them to come to Huaxi Hospital to sign a consent form for a brain operation.
The guard claimed that Ms. Liao hit her head while using the restroom the night before. But the Huaxi Hospital doctor revealed that she had injuries to her trachea and one of her lungs, leading her family to suspect that Ms. Liao incurred the injuries from being tortured for not renouncing Falun Gong. They also said the surgery would cost over 100,000 yuan and they demanded the family pay for it.
They recalled that a prison guard once said to them, “Liao Guanghui refused to be ‘transformed.’ She is very stubborn.”
Ms. Liao’s son deposited all his savings of 5,850-yuan for her medical expenses. The prison guard also demanded access to the 4,000 yuan in her commissary account to pay for her medical expenses.
After the operation, Ms. Liao has remained in the intensive care unit and three guards took turns monitoring her around the clock.
When Ms. Liao’s husband Mr. Li Shuangquan and son visited her in the hospital on March 14, her head was wrapped by gauze and she was on oxygen. Devastated to see her in a coma, her son called her, “Mom, mom!” But Ms. Liao didn’t have any response, and she didn't even move her eyes.
While the guards didn’t allow her family to visit her afterwards, they called them on March 29 and asked them to come to the hospital the next day. After her husband and son arrived at the hospital on March 30, the doctor told them that the swelling in Ms. Liao’s face has subsided, but she still had a fever and some issues with her lungs. The prison guards said they were planning to transfer Ms. Liao to the prison hospital and asked her family to sign the consent form.
Her family argued that since Ms. Liao remains in a coma and the prison hospital doesn’t have the necessary medical equipment to sustain her life, they are tremendously worried that the transfer would be fatal. They are requesting that the prison release her on medical parole so they can take care of her themselves. It’s not clear how the prison guards responded to the family's request.
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