(Minghui.org) The health of a 62-year-old woman has quickly deteriorated since her transfer to Gansu Province Women's Prison in January 2014.

When Ms. Sheng Chunmei's daughter visited her last September, she discovered that her mother had developed cataracts and couldn't see things clearly. Her mother also complained that the guards had forced her to stand for long periods of time and forbade her from sleeping when she refused to give up her belief in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that is persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.

Two months later when Ms. Sheng's daughter visited her again, she was having problems hearing. During a third visit this February, Ms. Sheng had lost almost all of her vision and hearing.

Ms. Sheng's daughter couldn't believe that the prison had turned her mother – who had regained her health after she began practicing Falun Gong in 1996 – into a nearly blind and deaf woman within one year of imprisonment. The prison, however, refuses to provide medical care or release her on parole.

Ms. Sheng and her husband Mr. Chen Deguang were arrested together in July 2011 while distributing DVD's of Shen Yun performances, a classical Chinese dance and music show that drew inspiration from Falun Gong.

While her husband remained incarcerated, Ms. Sheng was released on bail due to her health problems. She was again arrested in July 2012 and saw her and her husband each sentenced to nine years in September 2013.

Mr. Chen, 67, is now being held at Lanzhou Prison, while his wife, a retired worker at a construction company, languishes in another prison.

Prior to the couple's 2011 arrest, they had been arrested several times before. In particular, Ms. Sheng was arrested along with her daughter Chen Shenghua in March 2001 when they were distributing flyers exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. The mother was given two years of forced labor while the daughter received one year of forced labor. At the time, Mr. Chen was still serving his one-and-a-half-year forced labor term. Their 14-year-old son was thus left to fend for himself.