Deyang Prison Officials Deny Older Practitioner Mr. Jiang Zonglin Family Visits Three Times

Name: Jiang Zonglin
Gender: Male
Age: 63
Occupation: Former president of Chengdu City Mingyuan Construction Research Institution
Date of Most Recent Arrest: August 2nd, 2007
Most Recent Place of Detention: Deyang Prison
City: Deyang
Province: Sichuan
Persecution Suffered: Forced labour, imprisonment, denial of family visits

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Jiang Zonglin, former president of the Mingyuan Construction Research Institution in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, was sentenced to five years in prison in October 2008. He has been held in Ward No.6 at Deyang Prison. He developed symptoms of serious illness as a result of the physical abuse and mistreatment, but the prison officials won't allow him to be released on medical parole and denied his family's visits three times.

On March 28th, Mr. Jiang's wife and daughter once again went to Deyang Prison to visit Mr. Jiang but were again turned away, although they had waited in the prison's Education Section for an entire day. They demanded that section head Wu show them a document that stated they were not allowed to visit Mr. Jiang, but their demand was denied. During this time, Wu contacted Ward No.6 to “ask for” their opinion; the result was still explicit rejection. When they asked Wu if the prison carried out brainwashing on Mr. Jiang, Wu didn't deny it.

Falun Gong practitioners' families need to go through additional procedures in order to visit practitioners detained in Deyang Prison, and getting written approval from the Education Section is one of them. Mr. Jiang's family was stopped at the Education Section; the excuse the prison authorities gave was that Mr. Jiang “didn't comply with management and education.”

Mr. Jiang's family said that he is honest and kind and that he has been respected wherever he worked. He absolutely would not do anything bad. Education Section head Wu admitted that Mr. Jiang's behaviour wasn't bad, but he simply refused to let them visit Mr. Jiang.

Mr. Jiang once suffered from chronic nephritis, migraine, neurasthenia, and other illnesses, but after he practised Falun Gong in 1996, all his illnesses disappeared.

He was dismissed from his job after the persecution started in 1999. He was previously subjected to one year of forced labour at the Xinhua Forced Labour Camp in Sichuan Province for appealing for Falun Gong in Beijing. He and ten other practitioners were sentenced in October 2008 by the Wuhou District Court in Chengdu City. The court didn't follow basic legal procedures when it refused to allow the practitioners' families to observe the trials and prevented lawyers from defending the practitioners. The court officials' violations of the law drew extensive attention and condemnation from the international community and was recorded in the 2009 US Congress's annual report.

For more information, please see http://www.clearwisdom.net/html/articles/2010/3/17/115405.html

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2011/4/21/239340.html