A prominent Chinese democracy activist who was jailed last year during a Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attack on dissent has entered the second week of a hunger strike, according to his sister.
Guo Feixiong (郭飛雄), 49, was sentenced to six years behind bars in November last year for taking part in a protest against censorship outside the newsroom of a liberal newspaper in southern China.
Relatives and supporters of the activist, whose real name is Yang Maodong (楊茂東), say his health has deteriorated dramatically in recent months and accuse officials at Guangdong’s Yangchun Prison of denying him adequate medical treatment.
Guo launched his hunger strike on May 9, demanding better treatment as well as political change in China.
Guo’s sister, Yang Maoping, (楊茂平) yesterday confirmed he was still refusing to eat.
“It makes my heart ache,” she said of his increasingly poor physical condition.
In an open letter to Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平), the veteran activist’s wife, Zhang Qing (張青), wrote: “Guo Feixiong’s indefinite hunger strike in prison is in response to the deliberately degrading way he has been treated by the authorities.”
“No one has the right to persecute Guo Feixiong to death, and the perpetrators of these evils must be stopped,” Zhang wrote, according to a translation by the human rights group China Change.
“The brazenly unlawful behavior of the domestic security and prison authorities in Guangdong makes a mockery of the Chinese authorities’ claim to ‘govern the country according to the law,’” Zhang added.
Speaking earlier this month, Human Rights Watch China director Sophie Richardson said China’s “cruel and inhuman treatment” of prisoners had become a worrying trend.
“Chinese officials are earning an ugly reputation over their willingness to let political prisoners get terribly sick — and even die — in detention,” Richardson said.
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