67-Year-Old Woman Dies Less Than Two Weeks after Release on Medical Parole

A 67-year-old woman in Dalian City wasn't released on medical parole until more than a month after she was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer. She died less than two weeks after she returned home.

Ms. Liu Jinyu was home on April 21, 2016, when more than 20 agents broke in. She was so terrified that she passed out. The police ransacked her home before carrying her to their police cruiser.

Ms. Liu was targeted because she refused to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime.

Her husband, her son, and her son's girlfriend, who do not practice Falun Gong, were arrested at the same time. Ms. Liu's son was brutally beaten at the local police station for refusing to curse the founder of Falun Gong.

Ms. Liu was taken to Dalian City Detention Center, and her family members were released hours after their arrest.

Once a healthy woman, Ms. Liu quickly declined due to the abuse she suffered in the detention center. She developed high blood pressure and fainted on multiple occasions.

When Ms. Liu appeared in court on October 21, 2016, only her son was allowed to be present. She was sentenced to 3 years and 3 months and ordered to serve her time in Liaoning Province Women's Prison.

Ms. Liu once complained to her family about how she was being abused in prison. She said, “The food stinks and smells like medication. [The guards] don't let me use the restroom and I've soiled my pants many times. The head of my cell beats me all the time.”

She gradually lost her appetite, and her health declined even further. The guards never sought medical attention for her.

Ms. Liu became critically ill on February 23, 2018. Only then was she taken to the prison hospital. She was diagnosed with late-stage colon cancer.

The prison called in her son to pay her medical expenses. He rushed to the hospital to see his mother in bed with her feet shackled. Six guards watched her around the clock. He begged them to remove her shackle when she needed to use the restroom. The guards refused, and she had to relieve herself in her pants.

Her son consulted doctors at different hospitals who all said it was too late, that his mother's condition was beyond treatment. He filed a request for medical parole, but the prison ignored it.

Ms. Liu kept deteriorating, and the prison eventually approved her medical parole in early April 2018.

She died on April 15, 2018.