Once Incarcerated and Tortured for Three Years, 66-Year-Old Man Gets Another Four Years for His Faith in Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) A 66-year-old Suihua City, Heilongjiang Province, resident recently lost his appeal against a four-year prison sentence for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999.

Mr. Liu Rongpin was arrested at home around 8 p.m. on September 11, 2024, after the police pried open his door. His home was ransacked. He appeared in the Hailun City Court on March 28, 2025, and was sentenced to four years with a 10,000-yuan fine. The prosecution's evidence included twelve Falun Gong booklets and several Falun Gong books confiscated from his home. The presiding judge, Han Gaohui, accused him of being a “repeat offender” because of his previous prison sentence for practicing Falun Gong. Two other judges, Meng Weidong and Chen Jianguo, also signed his verdict.

Mr. Liu started to prepare for the appeal with the Suihua City Intermediate Court on April 7, 2025. His case was accepted by the court on April 28 and a judge surnamed Wang was assigned to it. When his family contacted the judge and demanded a re-trial, the judge said he would consider it after the long Labor Day (May 1) weekend. The family called the judge right after the holiday, only to be told that he had already ruled to uphold his original verdict.

In the past few years, under the new leadership of Ding Yan, the head of the Suihua City Police Department, the police have ramped up the harassment and monitoring of Falun Gong practitioners. Even some traffic police were dispatched to monitor the practitioners.

This isn’t the first time that Mr. Liu has been targeted for his faith. He was previously arrested on April 21, 2017, while visiting his daughter in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. A person reported him for distributing Falun Gong materials. He was sentenced to three years by the Wujiang District Court and suffered relentless torture at the Suzhou Prison. He was released on July 13, 2021.

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