Sister’s Complaint Against Prison Warden Improves Condition of Detained Falun Gong Practitioner

Mr. Chen Dicai, a 41-year-old serving a 7 year sentence in Hubei province, reported improved conditions after his sister filed several complaints to Chinese government offices on his behalf.

Mr. Chen was arrested in July 2019 and fined 30,000 yuan ($4,100 USD) in addition to his 7 year sentence after his brother-in-law reported him to the police for practicing Falun Gong.

Since his detention in 2019, Mr. Chen’s sister, Mei (pseudonym), repeatedly requested to visit her brother, but was denied each time. In July 2023, she called the prison’s supervising agency, the Shayang Prison Group Administration Bureau to complain. As a result, she was finally allowed to visit her brother on July 24.

Seeing her brother for the first time in four years, she found him unrecognizable. He had lost nearly half his bodyweight, his hair had grayed, and he had a sallow complexion. Mr. Chen told her he was forced to work from five in the morning to ten at night. Afterward, he was made to stand for hours as a form of torture while other prisoners slept, or he was beaten.

Mei demanded the prison’s disciplinary inspection committee investigate the abuse of her brother. Two days later, someone from the Jingmen City Discipline Inspection Commission called her and said they would investigate.

On September 2, Mei filed complaints against the prison warden at Fanjiatai Prison to numerous government agencies at the city, provincial, and national levels, as well as to the prison management. The Jingmen City Procuratorate forwarded her complaint to the Shayang Region Procuratorate, initiating an investigation.

On October 1, Mei managed to contact her brother again, who told her his conditions had improved, and he was being beaten less.

Base on an original report by Minghui.org