Former Hotel Manager Dies After Years of Being Drugged in Prison

“She could not raise her head, see well, or walk by herself.” This is what Ms. Zhu Weiying’s son said of her after he visited her in prison in 2013.

Ms. Zhu was serving eight years following her arrest in June 2011 for refusing to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime. Her son recalled being told by guards at Suzhou No. 3 Women's Prison, “Your mum is eligible for medical parole by every standard, but we can’t let her go because she refuses to give up her belief in Falun Gong.”

Ms. Zhu’s son learned later that his mother’s condition was in large part due to her being continuously drugged at the prison. The guards also tortured her on a regular basis. Her neck was broken after being stomped on. By October 2015, she had gone blind and become incapacitated. She also remained paralyzed.

The prison still refused to render her medical attention or grant her medical parole. It wasn’t until months later that they finally released her, when they realized that she was on the verge of death. Ms. Zhu’s condition kept deteriorating after she returned home on June 30, 2017.

She died recently, around October 2017.

Ms. Zhu’s death capped a nearly-two-decade ordeal that began in 1999 when the Chinese communist regime started the persecution of Falun Gong. She lost her job as the vice general manager of the Meishan Hotel in Hefei City. A healthy woman, she was committed to a local hospital, where the doctors were instructed to give her large amounts of drugs that damaged her central nervous system.

Ms. Zhu managed to survive the involuntary hospitalization, only to be arrested several more times in the years that followed. Her last arrest in 2011 resulted in a lengthy prison sentence, which eventually robbed her of her life. She was in her 60s when she died.