(Minghui.org) A married couple in Jiangmen City, Guangdong Province were sentenced to heavy prison terms four days before the New Year for practicing Falun Gong. Their teenager son is now left at home alone.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Yu Rongxin was arrested on September 18, 2017, and his wife Ms. Xie Qing was arrested three days later. Both of them are held at Jiangmen City Detention Center.

The police submitted the couple's case to Jiangmen City Procuratorate on June 28, 2018, and it was moved to Pengjiang District Court on July 31.

The couple appeared in court on September 11. Their lawyer defended their innocence.

On December 28, without informing the couple's lawyer or their family, the court secretly sentenced them to prison. Mr. Yu received 8.5 years and Ms. Xie 7.5 years.

In addition to the couple's heavy sentence, the same court also recently sentenced another practitioner, Mr. Wang Bin, to eight years in prison for spreading information on social media about Falun Gong.