(Minghui.org) The Renhe District Court of Panzhihua City, Sichuan Province illegally tried Ms. Hu Anshu and Ms. Yang Zhiqun, two women in their sixties, on December 25, 2012. No public notice was provided prior to the trial, and their families were not notified. The two women were arrested and illegally detained in Wanyaoshu Detention Center for more than seven months.

Ms. Hu Anshu, born in 1952, is from Yinjiang Town of east Panzhihua City. She lives in the Renhe Silk Company residential complex. Ms. Yang Zhiqun, born in 1948, is from Pengan, Nanchong. She lives in the Renhe Pangang District. Ms. Yang began practicing Falun Gong in 1998 and has gained physical and mental health from the practice.

Arrested for speaking about Falun Gong

Ms. Hu and Ms. Yang were talking to people about the persecution of Falun Gong on May 4, 2012, and distributing truth-clarification DVDs on Renhexin Street. Police from Renhe Public Security Bureau, Domestic Security Division, and Renhe Police Station arrested them and forcibly took Ms. Yang to her home and ransacked it. Ms. Yang's daughter saw that she was handcuffed, and asked the police, “Why did you put handcuffs on my mother?” The police said they were afraid of Falun Gong practitioners running away. Her daughter asked, “What has she done?” The police could not answer. They ransacked the homes of both Ms. Hu and Ms. Yang.

Ms. Hu and Ms. Yang were taken to Wanyaoshu Detention Center that same day, May 4. The document announcing their arrests was issued on June 8.

Prior detentions

Ms. Hu Anshu and Ms. Yang Zhiqun have been repeatedly persecuted and detained for persisting in their belief in Falun Gong.

Ms. Hu went to Beijing to appeal the persecution in June 2000. She was beaten by Qin Gang, a 610 Office agent in Beijing, and made to pay 1,800 yuan as a so-called “travel expense.” She was detained for 15 days.

The police broke into Ms. Hu's home in April 2001, and took her to Panzhihua City Detention Center. She was then sentenced to one and a half years at Nanmusi Forced Labor Camp in Zizhong. Ms. Hu's husband Jiang Zhenghua was also a Falun Gong practitioner. He was repeatedly subjected to brainwashing and detention. He passed away under economic and mental pressure.

Police in Pengan ransacked Ms. Yang Zhiqun's home in 2001, confiscated her Falun Dafa books, and detained her for 47 days in a detention center. Ms. Yang came to Panzhihua City to live with her daughter in November 2001, and worked in the South Station Hotel. Renhe Town police arrested her in 2003 because she was posting materials about Falun Gong.

Ms. Yang was detained at the Wanyaoshu Detention Center for more than 40 days, then sentenced to two years of forced labor. At the Nanmusi Forced Labor Camp in Zizhong, Zhang Xiaofang, team leader of squadron No. 7, tortured Ms. Yang because she did not report receiving a phone call. She was forced to do slave labor, and only allowed two to three hours of sleep per day.

After she was released in January 2005, police officers from the Renhe District and her hometown of Pengan often harassed her at her daughter's home, and insisted that she sign a guarantee statement promising to give up the practice.

Relevant personnel: Wang Jun, chief of Domestic Security Division in Renhe Sub-bureau, Pangzhihua Public Security Bureau: +86-812-2902180 (office) Xu Chaohui, president of Renhe District Court: +86-812-2901283