A newspaper report says a former inmate is now blind after he was allegedly being forced to drink two to four gallons a day for two months by another inmate. Police in Hebei Province is now investigating this case.

27 year old former inmate Qin YingWei says he was bullied into regular poker games by an intimidating inmate Yu while he was in prison in 2006. He says Yu threatened to beat him up and forced him to drink tap water every time he lost a game. For nearly two months, he drank between two to four gallons of water a day. He started to suffer health problems including swelling, scabies and later blindness in both eyes. Doctors say the continuously large amounts of water he swallowed damaged his internal organs.

Liu XiaoYuan, who has worked on similar cases, says they are common in Chinese prisons. So far this year there have been 15 reported incidents of inmates who have died in prison. But Liu says the actual number may be higher.