(Minghui.org) The villagers in a small town in Xinji City, Hebei Province are condemning the Chinese Communist Party for persecuting good people, after hearing that Mr. Zhang Qingxing had been secretly sentenced to a three-year prison term for his faith in Falun Gong.

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

Mr. Zhang, 76, was arrested on his way back home after taking his grandson to school on March 16, 2021. The police claimed that he was reported for talking to people at a local fair about Falun Gong months prior.

Though Mr. Zhang was released on bail initially, the authorities ordered his arrest again when he refused to have his photos taken during the “Zero-out” campaign, a concerted effort to force every Falun Gong practitioner on the government’s blacklist to renounce their faith.

Mr. Zhang was taken to the Xinji City Detention Center on March 17 and has since been denied family visits. His family learned in early 2022 that he was secretly sentenced to a three-year prison term, and taken to the Jidong No. 4 Prison in Tangshan City on February 18, 2022. The authorities also threatened his family not to seek justice for him.

Upon hearing about Mr. Zhang’s sentencing, many local villagers, who have witnessed how Mr. Zhang became a better person after taking up Falun Gong in 1998, condemned the persecution.

One villager said to his family, “It’s unbelievable that such a good person was sentenced to three years. Nowadays, the government is the law. If they say someone is guilty, they are guilty, and will be thrown into jail. But for the officials themselves, even if they violate the law, they can claim that they are innocent and get away with it. It’s the reality in China we are facing now.”

Others commented that the judges are corrupt, and sentence good people for their faith. They said the persecution of good people is the root cause of various problems in society. While the laws at the human level are being abused, there is the heavenly law that is evaluating everyone, and the perpetrators will be brought to justice one day.

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Arrested After Dropping Off Grandson at School, 76-year-old Man Secretly Sentenced to Three Years