(Minghui.org) A married couple in Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province, were both sentenced to prison for their faith in Falun Gong. The husband recently died in Jidong Prison, and his imprisoned wife hasn’t been told the sad news.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Pan Yingshun and his wife, Ms. Zhai Suping, were arrested at their family-owned pharmacy on January 19, 2018. The police drove Mr. Pan to a place where a self-adhesive sticker was posted and took photos of him with the sticker, which contained information about how Li Yinqing, head of the local Domestic Security Office, persecuted Falun Gong.
The police said they arrested the couple after seeing them put up the sticker on their surveillance cameras.
The Qinglong County Procuratorate approved the couple’s arrests on March 5. It later transferred their case to the Changli County Procuratorate, which has been designated to handle all Falun Gong cases in the Qinhuangdao metropolitan area.
Mr. Pan was sentenced to four years and six months, and Ms. Zhai to four years and nine months on January 30, 2019 by presiding judge Yang Hongmei of the Changli County Court.
Mr. Pan’s family received a call in July 2021 from Jidong Prison and was told that he had been sent to an intensive care unit at Xiehe Hospital in Tangshan City. His three children rushed to the hospital, but the doctor blocked them outside, citing the pandemic as the reason. After repeated pleas, they were allowed to take a quick look at Mr. Pan, who was unconscious and didn’t recognize them.
Mr. Pan’s children asked the prison guard watching him what had happened. The guard responded that an inmate poured boiling water on him on July 6. He was moved to the prison hospital five days later and transferred to Xiehe Hospital on July 19.
Mr. Pan’s children asked to see the surveillance camera to verify the guard’s account, but their request was denied.
Mr. Pan passed away on July 30. He was 70 years old. His children ordered an autopsy of his body and the examiner said the result would be available in a month. It’s not clear whether the result has been made available to them at the time of writing.
Ms. Zhai is still serving time at the Shijiazhuang Women’s Prison. Her children haven’t informed her of Mr. Pan’s death.
Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhai had a property line dispute with a neighbor in 2014. They were beaten and had their cellphones smashed. The local government sided with the neighbor. Ms. Zhai became so distressed that she was hospitalized for two weeks.
A relative came to visit and advised the couple to practice Falun Gong. The couple decided to give it a try.
Living by Falun Gong’s principles, they gradually became broader-minded and no longer held grudges against their neighbor. They also credited Falun Gong for turning them into more considerate and honest business owners in running their family-owned pharmacy.
Mr. Pan and Ms. Zhai helped care for a friend for a month in November 2017, who was incapacitated from having a stroke. They changed clothes and diapers for her, and helped her practice walking. The friend recovered quickly and returned home a month later.
Also in the same month, Mr. Pan saw a patient who suffered from severe pneumonia and had trouble breathing. He stayed in the hospital for 20 days and spent over 10,000 yuan, but the condition persisted. When he came to Mr. Pan’s pharmacy to get some medicine, Mr. Pan prescribed five yuan of medicine to him and introduced Falun Gong to him. He told the patient that many people have recovered from various diseases by reciting the auspicious phrases “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” The patient took his advice and recited the phrases. He recovered soon afterwards.
Another patient, then 56 years old, was devastated after being diagnosed with late-stage stomach cancer. The cancer cells had metastasized in his esophagus. He spent all of his savings and borrowed money to receive treatment. While he was recovering from the operation, the doctor said he may only have a year left.
As the patient had trouble eating, he also suffered from severe constipation. When his family went to Mr. Pan’s pharmacy to get medicine for him, Mr. Pan introduced Falun Gong to him and suggested that he recite the auspicious phrases “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”
Mr. Pan gave the patient some medicine, but didn’t charge him anything. The patient began to recite the phrases after going home and has since recovered. The other four stomach cancer patients who received the surgery around the same time as his have all since passed away.
When the patient went to the hospital for another examination in late 2019, the doctor was astonished to see him recovering well and cancer-free.