(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Song Yingjie, from Harbin, was recently sentenced to prison for eight years. She has started a protest hunger strike and has appealed the sentence.

On January 25, 2013, Ms. Song's parents went to the Nangang Court to inquire about their daughter's case. After Ms. Song was sentenced, her family did not receive notice from any agency. Every court staff person whom they spoke with said that their court had not accepted the case and that her case had been turned in to the Harbin Intermediate Court. When Ms. Song's parents went to the Intermediate Court, they were told that Friday was not the official reception day, and that they had to come back at another time.

On January 28, Ms. Song's parents went back to the Intermediate Court and asked about Ms. Song's case. They were told that the case has been closed and the notice of sentencing had been given to Ms. Song.

Ms. Song's parents and two sisters went to the Harbin No. 2 Detention Center on the morning of January 30 to visit her and get the sentence notice as a reference to hire a lawyer. However, the detention center staff told them to wait for the head of the detention center, Liu Zhiru, who was in a meeting at that time. Her family waited for hours and Liu had not shown up. After 11 a.m., they gave him a call and were told that the court had upheld the sentence and Ms. Song had already been sent to the Heilongjiang Women's Prison that morning while they were waiting.

This news was a great shock to Ms. Song's family. They remembered that while they were waiting for Liu Zhiru in the morning, they saw people being taken away in a police car. All of them were wearing black hoods over their heads; they were handcuffed and shackled. But they would never have imagined that their daughter, whom they missed so much, was among them.

Ms. Song's family has hired an attorney to seek justice for her.

Ms. Song Yingjie, 43, was a nurse at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Harbin Medical University. On April 28, 2012, she was asked to go to the hospital by her supervisor. The supervisor was actually helping police officer Liu Wei from the Liaoyang Police Station arrest Ms. Song and ransack her house. Her two computers, printers and several cell phones were confiscated. Later on, Ms. Song was detained at the Harbin No. 2 Detention Center. Her family went to the police officer who handled her case, but were told that her case had been turned over to the Nangang Procuratorate on May 11. After that, her family never received any further information about the case.

Ms. Song had a brain tumor many years ago, which was healed after she began to practice Falun Gong. She has been very healthy since then. She introduced the practice of Falun Gong to her patients, hoping that they could benefit from the practice as she did. However, because of this, she was threatened by her supervisor in an effort to force her to give up practicing Falun Gong.

Prior to this recent detention, Ms. Song has been sentenced to forced labor camps twice. When she was detained in Wanjia Forced Labor Camp in November 2003, because she refused to slander Falun Gong, police officer Yao Fuchang shocked her with an electric baton for two hours. As a result, her entire face was swollen and bloody and she couldn't eat for four or five days. Yao threatened that he would destroy Ms. Song's face if she exposed his crime.