(Minghui.org) Ms. Yao Guizhen is in serious condition due to extremely high blood pressure, but Songjiang Women’s Prison in Shanghai has refused to grant her family’s request to release her on medical parole.
Ms. Yao, a Shanghai resident in her 60s, was arrested on April 25, 2019, along with Ms. Wang Qiuju and Ms. Fan Wanxia. They were targeted for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
After a month in the Baoshan District Detention Center, Ms. Fan was released on bail, while the other two practitioners remained in custody.
The police submitted Ms. Yao and Ms. Wang’s cases to the Baoshan District Procuratorate on July 24, 2019. The prosecutor indicted them in November 2019 and moved their cases to the Jing’an District Court.
On July 29, 2020, the judge sentenced Ms. Yao to four years and three months and Ms. Wang to one year and four months. Ms. Yao appealed the judgment with Jing’an District Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original sentence on November 29, 2020, and even add a 20,000-yuan fine.
Ms. Yao’s family was notified by mail in late May 2021 that she was taken to the Songjiang Women’s Prison on May 26.
Two weeks later, on June 12, a prison guard called Ms. Yao’s son and told him to come to the prison on June 15, because Ms. Yao was having dangerously high blood pressure.
Three guards received Ms. Yao’s son on June 15. Chief guard Yan told him that his mother had been hospitalized on the evening of June 10, right after she was transferred to the third ward following the initial 14-day quarantine.
The guard connected Ms. Yao’s son with the doctor by phone. The doctor told him that his mother was in critical condition with her blood pressure at 260/100 mmHg when she got to the hospital but that she had stabilized after being treated. The doctor gave the phone to Ms. Yao, who told her son that she felt very ill and had almost died several times. She said that the guards had grabbed her hand and pressed her fingerprints on a statement to renounce Falun Gong.
Her son applied for medical parole for her, but the guards refused to consider it, saying that she wasn’t qualified. Before her son left, they made him write a statement acknowledging he was aware of Ms. Yao’s condition.
Ms. Yao’s son is very worried about her and is calling on the international community to pay attention to her case and help stop the persecution.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Chen Jianhua (陈建华), head of Shanghai Women’s Prison: +86-21-57615998Zhu (朱), guard: +86-21-57615998, ext.1101Zhou Ya (周雅), guard: +86-18116337805
Related reports:
Two Shanghai Women Sentenced to Prison for Practicing Falun Gong
Police Turn to Different Procuratorate After Previous One Refuses to Indict Falun Gong Practitioners
Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Shanghai Women’s Prison
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