Former Emergency Room Doctor Imprisoned for Faith, Mother Passes Away in Distress

Based on an original report from Minghui.org

55-year-old Mr. Guo Hao is a former emergency room doctor from Jianping County, Liaoning Province. For upholding his faith in Falun Gong, however, he has been subject to illegal sentencings and his once complete family has been broken apart. Most recently, his mother passed away in the fall of 2020.

Family Broken by Persecution

Guo began practicing Falun Gong in 1996 and lost his job at the onset of the persecution for upholding his faith.

He was arrested on December 5, 2002, and sentenced to three years in June 2003. During his incarceration, his wife divorced him and left with their son. 

Dealt a blow by Guo’s imprisonment and divorce, his father, Mr. Guo Yuanzhong, suffered from complications of strokes. He became incapacitated and died three years later.

After Guo was released, he relied on his mother’s pension to get by. Living under great stress, he developed high blood pressure, diabetes, and depression.

As the police constantly came to harass him, he was forced to live away from home three times and wandered about. 

On November 9, 2015, Guo was arrested again while visiting a fellow practitioner, Mr. Sha Jintang (later sentenced to three years). Although Guo was released due to high blood pressure on the same day, the police did not stop persecuting Guo and still submitted his case to the procuratorate.

On October 13, 2016, the police brought Guo to the procuratorate. After he refused to sign the indictment notice, the police asked for his guarantor’s phone number and released him. 

Seven months later, on May 16, 2017, Guo was made to appear in court. The judge did not announce the verdict and allowed him to return home. 

Latest Arrest

At around 8 a.m. on August 23, 2018, there was knocking on Guo’s door. His mother, Ms. Zhang Li, opened the door slightly and saw three young men standing outside. One then grabbed the doorknob and they barged in together. 

When Guo came over, the men identified themselves as officers from Chengxi Police Station. They asked to take Guo to the police station to verify some information; they promised to send him back home after they finished asking the questions.

As Guo still had not come back a few hours later, Guo’s anxious mother took a taxi and went to the police station to look for him. The officers denied they had information about her son. Disappointed, Zhang returned home.

At 11 p.m., another four young men knocked on the door. They told her that Guo has been taken to the local detention center and they came to get some clothes for him. They also asked her to sign Guo’s arrest warrant, but she refused.

Zhang then began appealing for her son’s release. Despite leg problems that made it difficult for her to walk, Zhang delivered 18 appeal letters to the county court, procuratorate, police department, county government, and county congress, but to no avail.

She managed to hire a lawyer to represent Guo, and the lawyer visited him at the detention center. Not long afterward, however, Guo was transferred and Zhang lost track of his detention location.

When Zhang went to the police station and court to inquire, they sent her in circles, not giving her a straight answer. Not until Guo called her three months later, did she learn that he had been taken to the Kangjiashan Prison.

In deep distress and struggling to live on her own, Zhang passed away in the fall of 2020. At the time of writing, Guo has yet to learn of his mother’s passing.

Original Article: https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/4/14/191869.html