Mr. Chen Baihe Again Denied Release for Medical Reasons and Not Allowed to See Family

Name: Chen Baihe
Gender: Male
Age: 59
Address: Shalingzi Village, Qianxi County, Tangshan City, Hebei Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May, 2006
Most Recent Place of Detention: Jidong Prison
City: Tangshan
Province: Hebei
Persecution Suffered: imprisonment, home ransacked, interrogation, detention
Key Persecutors: Xu Ziqiu, director of prison political office: 86-13903157351(Mobile), 86-315-8327998, 86-315-8310185; He Lizhi, deputy director of prison political office: 86-13323250699(Mobile), 86-315-8327588, 86-315-8502555

On December 4th, 2009, Mr. Chen Baihe's wife and daughter travelled more than three hours to the Jidong Prison with the hopes of visiting Mr. Chen, who had been imprisoned for three years and seven months. Their visitation request was denied, along with their request for Mr. Chen's release for medical reasons.

In January 2007, Mr. Chen was sentenced to four years in prison for distributing Falun Gong leaflets. During their visit in July 2009, Mr. Chen's wife and daughter noticed that he had lost sight in his left eye, and his blood pressure was as high as 170 mmHg. They asked for Mr. Chen's release for medical reasons, but their request was denied. They lost contact with him after the visit. Extremely worried, they travelled to the prison again on December 4th, 2009. The guards rejected their visit request, citing that the prison was under quarantine because of the swine flu.

The family asked for information about Mr. Chen's health. Li, head of the fifth section of the prison where Mr. Chen was imprisoned, confirmed on the phone that the prison doctor recommended an eye operation, but Mr. Chen was not willing to do it inside the prison.

The family repeated their request for Mr. Chen's release for medical reasons. Li said that he was on their proposed release for medical reasons list. His situation was also forwarded to the upper levels, but the release procedure was very complicated for Falun Gong practitioners, and the chance for approval was slim. He said that the procedure was extremely lengthy, and even if every step went fine and the request was finally approved, it would be close to the full term anyway.

The family went to the prison administration office to ask for Mr. Chen's release for medical reasons. Zhao, director of the administration office, first said that Mr. Chen was not qualified for release for medical reasons, and then said that the fifth section had to propose it first before they would consider the case.

The persecution of Mr. Chen Baihe was first reported at http://clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2009/9/18/110942.html.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/12/14/214397.html