Prison Officers Sent to Wuhan City to Persecute Falun Gong

As some prisons in western countries release non-violent inmates to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus, Chinese authorities transfer officers to the epicenter of the pandemic to keep prisoners of conscience under lock and key.

Facing a shortage of policing personnel in Wuhan City, the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak, prison officers from nearby provinces were transferred there by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to specifically persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

Both in February and March, CCP authorities reportedly ordered officers from women’s prisons in Hunan, Guangdong, Guizhou and Fujian provinces and Chongqing Municipality to transfer to Wuhan City so as to oversee Falun Gong practitioners there. The exact number is not known, but according to Beijing Spring, a Chinese publication, 24 officers moved on February 23 alone.

Wuhan Women’s Prison has been named a “Model Prison” and Jiang Chun, the prison’s Party secretary, has won several awards and traveled the country giving seminars on how to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

“The CCP transferred prison officials to Wuhan so that they could continue holding prisoners of conscience,” says Erping Zhang, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Information Center. “What this really means is the CCP is perfectly willing to put the lives of their own officers at risk so they may continue the persecution of Falun Gong.”

Official data published on February 21 claimed Wuhan Women’s Prison had 230 confirmed coronavirus cases. According to reports from Minghui.org and Beijing Spring, it is possible that many of these cases could be prison officers. 

Witnesses say officers working in Wuhan Women’s Prison are all wearing protective gowns and goggles. Their cellphones are also confiscated, possibly indicating that authorities are preventing information from leaking.

The original version of this article was published on Minghui.org:
http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2020/3/29/183829.html