(Minghui.org) A Mianyang City, Sichuan Province resident fell into a coma due to brain injuries, two months after she was imprisoned for her faith in Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Liao Guanghui’s family received a call from the Longquanyi Women’s Prison on March 10, 2021 that she fell while using the restroom and hit her head. After the guards took her to the hospital, her family also rushed there. The doctor said they were planning to perform brain surgery on her, which would cost at least 100,000 yuan. The doctor didn’t specify whether the prison would cover the cost. Ms. Liao’s son signed the consent form.

Ms. Liao’s family was also told that she had injuries in her trachea and one of her lungs. They suspected that Ms. Liao incurred the injuries from being tortured, not from hitting her head while using the restroom as claimed by the guards. With Ms. Liao remaining in a coma at the time of writing, her family is now very worried about her situation. 

In the past 22 years of persecution against Falun Gong, the Longquanyi Women’s Prison (also known as Chengdu Women’s Prison) has been notorious for its brutal torture of the imprisoned practitioners for upholding their faith. 

Ms. Chen Zhilian, 71, suffered severe intracranial hemorrhage after being beaten by the prison guards in 2020. She had a skull fracture and multiple injuries on her head. Another practitioner, Ms. Liang Wende, passed away on June 24, 2019 while serving a 5.5-year term. Although the guards claimed that she died from lung cancer, her family suspected that she might have been given unknown drugs or subjected to other forms of mistreatment that caused her condition to deteriorate quickly.

Ms. Liao, in her 60s, was arrested on July 20, 2019 by a dozen officers who suddenly broke into her home. Without showing their police IDs or search warrant, the police spent three hours ransacking her residence. Her two laptops, cellphone, printer, DVD burner, Falun Gong books and some cash were confiscated.

After more than a year of detention at the Mianyang City Detention Center, Ms. Liao appeared in Fucheng District Court on September 1, 2020 and was sentenced to three years with a 3,000-yuan fine on September 25. 

The authorities took her to the prison on January 20, 2021 without informing her family.

Ms. Liao isn’t the only one who has been targeted for practicing Falun Gong in her family. Her husband, Mr. Li Shuangquan, was arrested in 2012 and later sentenced to five years. While he was imprisoned, Ms. Liao helped care for her grandson, cooked for her son and daughter-in-law and sometimes helped take care of their family business. 

Related report:

Four Mianyang City, Sichuan Province Residents Recently Sentenced for Their Faith