(Minghui.org) A 52-year-old woman in Changsha City, Hunan Province has been detained for over three months for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhang Lingge was arrested at her mother’s home around 11 p.m. on October 27, 2020. The police handcuffed her as soon as they broke in. They confiscated Ms. Zhang and her mother’s cellphones, and held Ms. Zhang’s mother, Ms. Chen Lanzhen, in her bedroom, before ransacking her place. A few Falun Gong books of Ms. Zhang’s were confiscated.
At around 2 a.m., the police brought Ms. Zhang to her own place for ransacking. They left in a hurry and didn’t even allow her to change her slippers.
Ms. Zhang has been detained at the Changsha City No. 4 Detention Center since. Her mother later received a criminal detention notice, accusing Ms. Zhang of “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
In the past 22 years of persecution against Falun Gong, Ms. Zhang has been arrested multiple times and served a total of 11 years, including 1.5 years in a labor camp and two prison sentences for a total of 9.5 years. Her husband divorced her due to the pressure of the persecution and her son was separated from her since he was very young.
Ms. Zhang was first sentenced to six years in 2002. She spent one year in a detention center and the remaining five years in Hunan Province Women’s Prison.
Only 13 months after she was released, she was arrested again on April 27, 2009, and given 1.5 years at the Baimalong Forced Labor Camp.
Ms. Zhang was arrested again in a police sweep in March 2014 and sentenced to 3.5 years in Hunan Province Women’s Prison.
After she was released in 2017, the police continued to harass her and sometimes held her at brainwashing centers for days or weeks. Ms. Zhang was once arrested after a plainclothes officer saw her removing a banner that slandered Falun Gong. She was tied to a tree overnight and picked up by her family the next morning.
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