(Minghui.org) Over 600 additional villagers from Hubei and Jiangxi provinces have signed their names and given their fingerprints on a petition appealing for the release of Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Dai Meixia.
Ms. Dai has been illegally detained in Huangmei Detention Center for a year and a half.
This was the second petition campaign initiated by local villagers to demand the release of Ms. Dai. Approximately 2,000 people initially signed the petition.
373 People from Jiangxi Province signed the petition calling for the release of Dai Meixia
237 People from Hubei Province signed the petition
Ms. Dai Meixia, 42, is from Huangmei County in Hubei Province. She started practicing Falun Gong because of poor health, but has faced brutal persecution from local police after the communist regime launched the systematic campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in 1999.
Ms. Dai was arrested on the morning of May 10, 2012, and taken to the Hubei County Legal System Education Center, which functions as a brainwashing center. She was subjected to cruel mental and physical torture for 88 days.
The Huangmei County Court tried Ms. Dai on the morning of March 25, 2013. Two attorneys defended her and argued that it is legal under Chinese constitutional law for her to practice Falun Gong.
Despite the lawyers' sound defense, Ms. Dai was sentenced to a five-year prison term. She subsequently appealed the verdict in the Huanggang Intermediate People's Court.
The Huanggang Intermediate People's Court then overturned the conviction and ruled the Huangmei County Court's trial to be illegal due to a technicality. A second trial is pending.
