(Minghui.org) Three residents of Longkou City, Shandong Province have been detained for more than a year for their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
One of the practitioners, Mr. Yao Xinren, suffered a stroke on April 22, 2020. The doctor performed a craniotomy and tracheotomy on him. He has remained in a coma and is still in the intensive care unit at the time of writing. Four officers have been assigned to monitor him around the clock.
Mr. Yao was arrested at work at around 8:30 a.m. on July 3, 2019. The police also went to his residence and ransacked the place. Around 9 a.m., Ms. Yuan Yuqin was arrested at her home, where officers also confiscated several boxes of Falun Gong informational pamphlets. The third practitioner, Ms. Fu Qiurong, was arrested at home on July 4. Many of her Falun Gong books and materials, printers and other office supplies, were seized by the officers.
Mr. Yao was detained at Zhangjiagou Detention Center. Ms. Yuan and Ms. Fu were held at Yantai Detention Center.
The police threatened Ms. Yuan’s family with their jobs and college education and forced them to turn in her laptop in order to collect evidence with which to charge her.
Ms. Yuan suffered a bone fracture in early November 2019. The prosecutor intended to release her on bail, but the move was blocked by the police.
In late November 2019, the prosecutor returned the practitioners’ cases to the police, citing insufficient evidence. The police went to Yantai Detention Center and collected more information about Ms. Yuan’s doing Falun Gong exercises and talking to inmates about Falun Gong, which they used as evidence against her.
Due to the physical torture and mental distress in the detention center, Ms. Fu lost a lot of weight.
The Longkou City Court scheduled a court hearing for February 14, 2020, but canceled it due to the coronavirus epidemic.
