(Minghui.org) A college graduate serving a seven-year prison term for sharing information about Falun Gong has lost a significant amount of weight after being on a hunger strike for nearly a month to protest the imprisonment.

His family is demanding medical parole for him.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Jiang Shilin, a resident of Zhuanghe City, Liaoning Province in his 20s, was arrested in December 2016 after being caught spreading information about Falun Gong and sending anti-censorship software on his cellphone through the instant messaging network QQ.

The authorities threatened to sentence him to a heavy prison term, unless he agreed to give up practicing Falun Gong.

Mr. Jiang refused to comply. He was given seven years by Zhuanghe Court on June 7, 2017. The judge didn't inform his family of the trial.

His grandfather collapsed and had to be hospitalized upon learning of his sentencing.

After Mr. Jiang was taken to Liaoning Province No. 1 Prison in Shenyang City, he was put into a high security ward and subjected to intensified torture and brainwashing, aimed to force him to renounce his faith.

He was also forced to do unpaid labor and given a meager amount of food, before he went on a hunger strike to protest the persecution.

The prison authorities informed his family of his hunger strike and said they had been giving him infusions. They asked his family to sign an agreement for the guards to force feed him.

Afraid of Mr. Jiang being starved to death, his family signed the agreement. But they also worry whether the inmates, who have never received any medical training, would cause any damage to him during force feedings, or even use that as a way to torture him.