Imprisoning Elderly Falun Gong Practitioners is Murder

(Minghui.org) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) frequently imprisons elderly Falun Gong practitioners who are physically weak or injured. This has become an operating model in China.

This is yet another crime committed by the CCP in its 27-year-long persecution of Falun Gong. It is an extension of former CCP leader Jiang Zemin’s orders to persecute practitioners to “defame their reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.”

Most of these elderly practitioners developed serious illnesses due to long-term persecution by the CCP. Some were tortured to the point of being unable to care for themselves. According to Chinese law, they are entitled to medical parole at home after they were (illegally) sentenced. At home they can be cared for by relatives and receive help from friends, family, or other Falun Gong practitioners, and can gradually recover and regain their health by practicing the exercises and reading Falun Gong’s teachings.

However, the CCP’s courts and police departments collude and forcibly take and imprison these elderly people. In some instances even those who were receiving intravenous drips were placed on stretchers and taken directly to prison.

So, how do prisons treat these elderly Falun Gong practitioners?

Systematic Persecution: Specialized Prison Wards

Some people may not know that every province (or autonomous region and municipality) in China has prisons specifically for detaining Falun Gong practitioners. These prisons have a special ward, usually called the “Ninth Ward” that is directly controlled by the prison’s 610 Office and is linked to the local 610 Office system.

When a Falun Gong practitioner has just been illegally sentenced by the court but has not yet been sent to prison, the prison’s 610 Office notifies the prison ward in advance to “make preparations,” including researching the practitioner’s personal information and personality traits, to formulate a specific persecution plan. This premeditated “preparation-research-implementation” process constitutes a key link in the systematic persecution.

Why is imprisoning elderly Falun Gong practitioners equivalent to murder? The two following cases reveal how prisons abuse elderly Falun Gong to the point of death.

Case 1: Forced to Sleep on the Upper Bunk, Beaten, and Suffocated

I was once illegally detained in Zhengzhou Prison in Henan Province. There I learned that an elderly Falun Gong practitioner, due to his advanced age and frailty, had great difficulty climbing to the upper bunk of the bed. But the prison authorities, knowing his condition, forced him to sleep there. After the elderly practitioner fell and was injured, he was unable to move and use the toilet, so he soiled the bed. The prison authorities sent him to the prison hospital claiming he had “mental illness,” and they forced him to take medication.

The elderly practitioner refused to continue taking the medication because it caused heart palpitations. The inmate assigned to take care of him not only failed to look after him, but also dragged him to a blind spot in the ward’s surveillance system, smothered him with a blanket, and severely beat him. The man was beaten badly but no one could hear his cries for help.

Case 2: Elderly Man from Sheqi County, Henan Province Was Persecuted to Death

Mr. Wang Zizhou, a 74-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Sheqi County, Henan Province, was arrested and his home was ransacked in 2019. He was later illegally sentenced to three and a half years in prison. On October 14, 2023, he died as a result of persecution in Xinmi Prison.

Prison surveillance video showed that:- Mr. Wang, who was elderly, and had been seriously ill for a long time, did not receive any treatment.- He was not given food for two consecutive days.- He was unable to take care of himself and needed assistance to use the toilet.- He was still forced to attend the roll call despite his condition.- The prison guards did nothing.

Mr. Wang was in unbearable pain, but no one came to his aid. It was not until 10 minutes after he stopped moving that someone kicked him a few times. He was then was taken away for “emergency treatment.”

After Mr. Wang died, the prison authorities denied his family members’ requests to see the autopsy report, medical records, or surveillance footage, claiming they were “classified information.”

The True Death Toll is Much Higher

The above are just two cases I personally witnessed. Numerous similar cases can be found on Minghui.org. The CCP not only murders elderly practitioners but also other practitioners.

The Minghui.org website has verified that more than 5,000 practitioners have died as a result of persecution. The CCP makes investigating these deaths difficult. The challenges include internet censorship and the inability of many practitioners to access the internet. The regime routinely tracks practitioners and places them under surveillance. Due to the CCP’s internet censorship it’s difficult to verify details about the persecution, and difficult to submit the information to Minghui.org. The actual number of deaths is far higher than the known figures.

While I was detained in Zhengzhou Prison, Li Xilong, the director of the Zhengzhou Prison 610 Office, loudly shouted while forcing practitioners to watch videos that slandered Falun Gong, “Just let the Falun Gong practitioners die here.”

The Persecution Extends Outside China

The CCP attempts eradicate Falun Gong because the regime’s promotion of class struggle and hatred contradict traditional values, including Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. The CCP has now exported this suppression to other countries.

One girl, who was attending school in Canada and watched a performance given by Falun Gong practitioners on traditional Chinese culture, was arrested when she visited relatives in China. This clearly shows that the CCP is monitoring Chinese communities outside China.

The CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong has gone on for 27 years. Practitioners are faced with systematic illegal detention, torture, and death, and the information is covered up. We hope more people will speak up and help stop this ongoing persecution.