(Minghui.org) A man in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Province, was sentenced to 13 years for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Two others in Yinchuan are also facing prosecution for their shared faith.
Mr. Chu Jidong, a Tianjin native who moved to Yinchuan to avoid persecution, has been sentenced to 13 years. He is currently held at the Yinchuan City Detention Center. It has been at least 90 days since he started a hunger strike to protest the persecution and he is repeatedly force-fed.
In the early years of the persecution, Mr. Chu was given three years of forced labor. When his term ended, the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin refused to release him and sent him straight to a brainwashing center.
Ms. Yao Xiaoyan was arrested at home on December 2, 2021. She was detained as a criminal the next day and has been held at the Yinchuan City Detention Center ever since. The Xixia District Procuratorate approved her arrest on December 30, 2021.
The police submitted Ms. Yao’s case to the Xixia District Procuratorate on February 28, 2022. The prosecutor indicted her and moved her case to the Xixia District Court on March 31. Her family has hired a lawyer for her.
Mr. Zhao Lin, 55, was first arrested on March 7, 2020, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. The police released him the next day and threatened to enforce his 15-day detention after the pandemic. Only a day later, the police ransacked Mr. Zhao’s residence for the second time in three days, looking for Falun Gong materials to charge him. He was forced to live away from home to avoid further persecution.
In early November 2021, the police located Mr. Zhao when he was forced to undergo a coronavirus test in the subdivision of his temporary residence. The police searched his rental place and held him at the Yinchuan City Detention Center. He was indicted around March 2022 and is now facing trial by the Xixia District Court.
Prior to his latest persecution, Mr. Zhao, a former employee of the Northwestern Bearing Factory, was arrested in May 2006 after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. He was later given one year at the Ningxia Province Forced Labor Camp.
Mr. Zhao was arrested again on November 16, 2007, and later sentenced to five years in Pinglu Prison. As he refused to recite the prison rules, the guards held him in solitary confinement during the day and didn’t allow him to go back to the cell to sleep until around 1 a.m. The inmates also twisted his arms, slapped him in the face, and forced him to stand for long hours. They would also beat him if he tried to do Falun Gong exercises.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Ding Zeyu (丁泽宇), prosecutor of Xixia District Procuratorate: +86-951-5926575Hu Guilan (虎柜兰), judge of Xixia District Court: +86-951-4014281Zhao Min (赵敏), court clerk: +86-951-3011952