Pastor Cao Sanqiang: Medical Treatment in Prison (II)

In my article yesterday, I said that all information about whether Pastor Wang Yi is ill is held by the prison; even Pastor Wang Yi himself does not know. Why, in general, do prisons not tell inmates that they have a serious illness?

If a medical examination finds that an inmate has cancer, but he is still several months away from being in critical condition, telling him at that point could lead to the following situations:

1. The inmate asks to be released on medical parole.

As I said earlier, it is now very difficult to be released on medical parole. Medical parole involves the exercise of power, and wherever power is involved, corruption can arise. The going rate for corruption used to be this: if an inmate was sentenced to twenty years in prison and had served four years, the price to get him out at that point was 500,000 yuan. 200,000 yuan went to the doctor issuing the certificate, who would certify that the inmate did indeed have an illness that the prison hospital could not treat and qualified him for medical parole. 200,000 yuan went to the prison official with decision-making power, who could make the final call. 100,000 yuan went to the intermediary.

Now, with the anti-corruption campaign, no one dares to break the law, but prisons also no longer readily allow inmates to be released on medical parole. I spent more than four years in Kunming Prison and never heard of anyone being released on medical parole. But if someone has cancer, he should qualify for medical parole, because hospitals in the prison system simply do not have the capacity to treat cancer. Treating cancer requires radiotherapy equipment and specialized personnel, and it costs a lot of money. If you do not allow a cancer patient to be released on medical parole, it is hard to justify. So the best thing to do is keep it from him.

2. An inmate with a terminal illness will certainly no longer have any motivation to reform through labor. If he is going to die anyway, why bother working? At that point, the prison would have to assign him to the strict-management group. But no one would dare manage an inmate like that, because he is no longer afraid of death and could get into a fight with anyone at any time. Prison rules and discipline are of little use for a terminally ill person. So the best thing to do is keep it from him.

But the prison absolutely does not want an inmate to die in prison, because if an inmate dies in prison, the prison will have to deal with a lot of trouble. There was an inmate just next door to me like this. After he was admitted to the prison, his family completely abandoned him: they did not send him money, visit him, call him or write to him, and they did not accept the letters he wrote. In short, they cut ties with him completely. Later, when this inmate was critically ill, his family was notified to come to the prison to take him, but they paid no attention. His family had worked out the costs: it would cost money to transport the body to the county crematorium, and cremation would cost more; the total expenses would be at least 5,000 yuan. His family could not afford this, so they ignored the prison’s notice. The prison could hardly put him out on the street, since he could no longer walk. Dumping him on the street would have a social impact. In the end, this inmate died in prison. After he died, his family came to the prison. They said, “When he entered your prison, he was a living person; now he is an urn of ashes. You owe us an explanation.” They insisted that poor prison management had caused their family member’s death. In the end, I heard that the prison gave the inmate’s family some money to keep the matter quiet. The prison is not afraid of living inmates, but it is afraid of dead ones. It is truly ridiculous.

For inmates with terminal illnesses, the prison’s usual practice is to wait until they are critically ill before notifying their families to come and take them. By then, they are already at death’s door, and probably could not pose a danger to society. That way, there is no need to worry about possibly having to bear responsibility.

In fact, inmates’ rights include not only one visit per month, but also the right to correspond and the right to make phone calls. Visits and phone calls are allowed once a month, while there is no limit on correspondence. In 2023, I wrote 52 letters to my mother, and she received about 40. I wrote more than 30 letters to my younger sister, and she received more than 20. Under the Prison Law, inmates are allowed to write to friends, but the prison explicitly told me that I was not allowed to correspond with friends and could write only to my mother and younger sister.

Inmates’ letters are submitted to prison guards for approval, and only after approval do the guards send them to the post office.

When new inmates enter prison, prison guards give them an orientation and clearly explain the rules for writing letters. One of the rules is that they must not write anything bad about the prison, such as saying that the food at the prison is insufficient, and so on. If they say anything bad about the prison, not only will the letter not be sent, but they may also be sent to the strict-management group. So everyone is very cautious when writing letters.

When I was in Prison District 6 (a regular-work district), I was once assigned to clean the prison guards’ office and found a pile of letters that inmates had written to their families two years earlier. They had never been sent.

Inmates are not allowed to exchange contact information with one another, because the prison fears that inmates released earlier will contact inmates still inside and that they may form gangs after getting out. But most inmates still exchange contact information. Although friendships in prison are shallow, we have, after all, met each other, and that is a scene in life worth cherishing for some inmates.

While I was in prison, some of my rights were curtailed, but my rights to see my family, make a phone call and write letters each month were basically upheld.

While I was in Kunming Prison, the lawyers Li Guisheng and Yang Hui both came to see me several times. When a lawyer came to see me, a prison guard stood beside the lawyer and listened in. I do not know whether this is legal. In the detention center, police are not allowed to listen in on conversations between lawyers and suspects.

I hope that Pastor Wang Yi can also enjoy all the rights provided for in the Prison Law. If even one of these three rights had been upheld, unverified reports would not have spread around the world. I also hope a lawyer can go and see Pastor Wang Yi.