(Minghui.org) An 80-year-old man was told by a police officer that the charges against him had been dropped, only to be indicted for his faith one week later.

Mr. Sun Xintian was arrested in May 2018 while distributing informational materials about Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline being persecuted by the communist regime since 1999. The police ransacked his home and kept him at the police station for 24 hours before his son paid the bail money to take him home.

Mr. Sun received a call on September 6, 2018, from a police officer surnamed Wang, who told him that his case had been dismissed. Wang instructed him to come to the police station to process some paperwork.

Mr. Sun arrived at the police station with two documents he printed out off the internet. One was a list of cult organizations identified by the Chinese Ministry of Public Security, and the other was the notice from China Administration of Press and Publication that repealed its ban on publication of Falun Gong books in China.

Mr. Sun reminded officer Wang that Falun Gong was not on the cult list and that it was totally legal to practice and spread information about the practice. Wang refused to listen and took him straight to Yuanbao District Procuratorate.

Only then did Mr. Sun realize that Wang had intended to get him indicted all along. The prosecutor was out of office, and Wang sent Mr. Sun home.

One week later, Mr. Sun received a call asking him to report to the procuratorate. His son worried that it might be a trap, but Mr. Sun insisted that he must go to tell them he broke no law by practicing Falun Gong.

Officer Wang and several staff members from the procuratorate surrounded Mr. Sun as soon as he arrived. They videotaped him and refused to take a look at the same two documents he once showed Wang.

Mr. Sun said: “I have been practicing Falun Gong for more than 20 years and I experienced significant health improvement. Now I'm 80 years old, and I'm still in good spirits and feel energetic. It's wrong for you to persecute Falun Gong.”

A prosecutor surnamed Zhao handed Mr. Sun a copy of the indictment and said: “You have been indicted, and you can now think about hiring a lawyer.”