(Minghui.org) A 52-year-old medical worker from Lanling County, Shandong Province was sentenced to one-and-half years for telling people about the persecution of Falun Gong. Ms. Wu Shujuan appealed, but the local higher court upheld her sentence without holding a hearing. She is now serving her term at Shandong Province Prison.
One of Six Arrested
Ms. Wu was one of six local residents arrested on January 17, 2015 for distributing Falun Gong informational materials.
The head of the county 610 Office indicated that the police had been monitoring the internet activities of Ms. Wu’s and her fellow practitioners’ for quite some time before the arrest. The authorities knew that these practitioners visited Minghui (a website exposing the persecution of Falun Gong and banned by the regime) frequently and threatened to use this against them.
All the arrests were approved in February 2015. Due to lack of substantive evidence, the procuratorate returned the cases several times to the police. The authorities, however, refused to release the practitioners.
No Law Criminalizes Falun Gong
The first hearing, scheduled on November 2015, was not held, because the laptop of the lawyer of one practitioner was confiscated.
A second hearing was arranged for December 10, 2015. At the hearing, Ms. Wu testified that Falun Gong helped her become a better person and the practice caused no harm to others. She described how practicing Falun Gong has benefited her and her family and that she recovered from all her illnesses.
The lawyer also defended her and refuted all evidence. He mentioned that there is no law that criminalizes Falun Gong and the persecution was illegal from the start.
Ms. Wu was sentenced to one and half years. Four of the five other practitioners were also given prison sentences.
All five sentenced practitioners appealed their verdicts, only to be interrogated separately soon afterwards. The higher court next issued a decision to uphold the original sentences without holding any hearing.
Ms. Wu was transferred to Shandong Province Prison in April 2016.
Prior Arrests
Ms. Wu has been arrested multiple times for her faith. She was arrested in November 2000 and held in a detention center. Her house was ransacked and she was detained for more than a month until her family had paid a ransom.
The second arrest occurred in August 2006, when she was given three years of forced labor. However, the labor camp refused to admit her as she failed the mandatory medical examination.
Participants in the persecution of the practitioners:Feng Kangning, head of the 610 Office, Lanling County: +86-15863936619, +86-13562980639Li Linwei, team leader, police department: +86-13864972666Yang Jingjun, court president: +86-539-5227865Gao Zhenxiao, presiding judge: +86-13053953966 (Cell), +86-539-5790032 (Office)
(More participants in the persecution contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)
