(Minghui.org) Since Ms. Zhou Qin was secretly arrested in September 2019, her family hasn’t been allowed to see her once. They were recently notified that the 61-year-old former college English teacher has been imprisoned to serve a six-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhou, a Guiyang City, Guizhou Province resident living by herself, suddenly lost contact with her family in September 2019. Unable to reach her, her cousin went to her home on September 25, but no one opened the door. None of her neighbors recalled having seen her recently.

Ms. Zhou’s cousin returned a few days later and Ms. Zhou still wasn’t home. She reported Ms. Zhou’s disappearance to the local police station on October 4, only to be told that she had been arrested. When her cousin asked the police why she was arrested and where she was detained, the police refused to answer.

For the next few months, Ms. Zhou’s cousin and her friends visited almost every detention center in Guiyang to look for her, but to no avail. Finally, they found her at the Sanjiang Women’s Detention Center, a facility in the suburban area of Guiyang.

Ms. Zhou’s family made two cash deposits for her, in December 2019 and January 2020, respectively. After the coronavirus pandemic broke out, the detention center stopped receiving them for the deposits. 

Ms. Zhou’s family recently received her six-year prison sentence dated April 19, 2021. It’s reported that she has been taken to the Guizhou Province No. 1 Women’s Prison (also known as the Yangai Prison), but the prison authorities also barred them from visiting her there.

Chinese version available

Category: Accounts of Persecution