(Minghui.org) A Dandong City, Liaoning Province resident is facing trial for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the communist regime since 1999.
The judge at Zhen'an District Court forwarded Ms. Shao Changhua's indictment to her in early March 2019. She was charged with possessing Falun Gong books and related materials. When she questioned the judge what law she violated for practicing Falun Gong, the judge was unable to answer her.
Ms. Shao refused to use the court-appointed lawyer who was ordered to enter a guilty plea for her, and said that she would defend herself.
Ms. Shao was arrested on August 17, 2018, after the police suspected her involvement in the case of two other practitioners, who had been sentenced to prison for putting up Falun Gong banners.
The police initially told her family that they would only detain her for seven days. But when her family visited her on the fifth day after her arrest, she had already been transferred to another facility and placed under criminal detention.
When her lawyer visited her at the detention center on September 19, 2018, she was extremely weak due to a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was carried out by two inmates to meet with the lawyer.
Ms. Shao's family visited Yang Shuo, the officer in charge of her case, several times and demanded her release. Yang rejected them and said he had already submitted her case to the procuratorate.
Ms. Shao's daughter, who was seven months pregnant, found prosecutor Zhao at Yuanbao District Procuratorate on October 15, 2018 and demanded him to drop her mother's case. Zhao said that he was about to indict Ms. Shao and that the only way to drop the case was that if she wrote a statement to renounce Falun Gong.
Prosecutor Zhao later transferred the case to Zhen'an District Procuratorate, which then submitted it to Zhen'an District Court.
Ms. Shao had been sentenced twice, in 2005 and 2010, for a total of nine years for not renouncing Falun Gong. She was tortured and injured at Liaoning Women's Prison.
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