(Minghui.org) The Guangdong Province Women’s Prison has been holding an 84-year-old woman in its in-house hospital since she was admitted there in July 2023 for her faith in Falun Gong. Ms. Yao Jingjiao had been suffering from persistent high blood pressure, but the authorities insisted that she be jailed and refused to release her on medical parole.
Falun Gong is a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Yao, of Jieyang City, Guangdong Province, was arrested on June 14, 2020 and released on bail the next day. The police and the local street committee kept harassing her at home. Her bail conditions were renewed twice, in June 2021 and June 2022. The Jiedong District Procuratorate indicted Ms. Yao on April 22, 2022, and the Jiedong District Court tried her in August 2022. She was sentenced to three years with a 30,000-yuan fine in November 2022 and remained on bail afterwards.
The Rongcheng District Domestic Security Office took Ms. Yao for a physical examination on May 5, 2023. She was found to have high blood pressure, but the police still took her to the Jiedong District Detention Center, where she was held until she was transferred to the Guangdong Province Women’s Prison in early July 2023.
It was recently learned that due to Ms. Yao’s persistent high blood pressure and declining health, the prison has been holding her in its in-house hospital since the day of her admission.
Ms. Yao was among many local Falun Gong practitioners arrested on June 14, 2020. She and seven other practitioners met at Ms. Zhong Peizhen’s home that day to study the Falun Gong teachings and were all arrested by police who had been staked outside the home.
According to insiders, the Jieyang City Domestic Security Office had listed Ms. Zhong’s home as a key surveillance target as early as on February 24, 2020. Under the directive of Li Min, deputy chief of the Jieyang City Police Department, the police monitored local Falun Gong practitioners who visited Ms. Zhong and put them on their blacklist.
Lin gave the order to “tighten the net” on June 14, 2020, dispatching agents from the Jieyang Domestic Security Office, the Rongcheng District Domestic Security Office, the Jiedong District Domestic Security Office, and various local police stations to carry out the group arrests.
The police surrounded Ms. Zhong’s home that day and arrested those present. For those who were on their blacklist but not at Ms. Zhong’s home, the police arrested them at other places. In total, 18 practitioners were arrested that day.
Among those arrested at Ms. Zhong’s home, four have been sentenced to prison. Mr. Chen Hongyuan, around 70, was sentenced to nine years with an 80,000-yuan fine in late 2020. Ms. Zhong, 79, was given 2.5 years with a 30,000-yuan fine in September 2021. Ms. Jiang Biyin, 81, and Ms. Yao were tried together in August 2022 and both convicted three months later, with Ms. Jiang given six months with a 5,000-yuan fine and Ms. Yao three years with a 30,000-yuan fine.
The case statuses of Ms. Zhong’s five other guests are not clear, including Ms. Huang Yanzhi, 70, Ms. Cai Wenjun, 54, Ms. Liu Chunlan, Ms. Wu Yueyin, and Ms. Yao Shaohong, the latter three all around 40.
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