(Minghui.org) After nearly two years on the run to hide from the police, a 58-year-old Zibo City, Shandong Province, woman was arrested and sentenced to three years for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhou Lizhi’s ordeal stemmed from an earlier arrest with another practitioner Ms. Yao Guihua on March 14, 2020. The COVID-19 pandemic was at its height back then, and Ms. Zhou and Ms. Yao, who both live in the Zichuan District, went to nearby Shangjia Town in the Wenchanghu District to distribute informational materials about Falun Gong.
Because practicing Falun Gong resolved her neck problem, headaches, back pain, and motion sickness, Ms. Zhou hoped that the information would enable more people to identify with Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and enjoy its health benefits and better protect themselves from the virus. Two villagers, Wang Wanlian and Wang Yanjun, reported them to the police.
Police director Zhang Bin and officer Liu Deyao of the Shangjia Town Police Station arrested Ms. Zhou and Ms. Yao. The two were interrogated at the police station three times over the next two days. Both of them refused to sign the interrogation records.
Hours after their arrest, officers with the Wenchanghu District Police Department and Shangjia Town Police Station raided their homes. Their Falun Gong books, informational materials, photos of Falun Gong’s founder, printers, and laptops were confiscated.
Due to the pandemic, the local detention center refused to admit the women, and they were released on bail on March 15, 2020.
Led by their counterparts in the Lingzi Town Police Station in the Zichuan District, Shangjia Town Police Station officers went to both Ms. Zhou and Ms. Yao’s homes on May 10, 2020, and ordered them to sign their case documents to be submitted to the Zichuan District Procuratorate. One of them signed the document, and the other didn’t. (It’s not clear who signed.)
A year later on May 12, 2021, Liu Kexue, the deputy chief of Lingzi Town Police Station, and Shangjia Town Police Station officers arrested Ms. Zhou and Ms. Yao and took them to the hospital for physical exams. Both women were taken to one of the police stations and interrogated and had their fingerprints and photos taken against their will. They were released later in the afternoon.
Ms. Yao was seized again two days later and held in the Zibo City Detention Center. The Shangjia Town Police Station told her in a virtual meeting in early June 2021 that her arrest had been approved by the Zichuan District Procuratorate. She refused to sign her arrest warrant.
The Zichuan District Court heard Ms. Yao’s case on September 1, 2021, and sentenced her to three years with a 5,000-yuan fine on September 23 that year. Her wrongful conviction was preceded by a prior four-year prison sentence, also for practicing Falun Gong.
To avoid being sentenced, Ms. Zhou lived away from home to hide from the police, only to be arrested on June 8, 2023, by officers from the Banyang Road Police Station. She was sentenced to three years on August 15, 2023, and is now awaiting the result of her appeal.
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