(Minghui.org) Five Wuxue City, Hubei Province residents were given heavy prison terms on July 23, 2020, for raising awareness about the persecution of their faith in Falun Gong, which has lasted 21 years under the communist regime in China.
Ms. Guo Pingzhen, 40 and a beauty salon owner, was sentenced to ten years and fined 20,000 yuan. She is currently held at the Qichun County Detention Center.
Ms. Gong Yuegui, 49, Ms. Liu Yanfeng, 56, and Ms. Cheng Xuezhen, 58, were each sentenced to eight years and fined 20,000 yuan. All three are now detained at Huanggang City Detention Center.
Mr. Liao Yuanhua, 63 and a former director of Wuxue City Agricultural Department, was given four years with 10,000 yuan fine. He is now detained at Wuxue City Detention Center.
The five practitioners were arrested around the same time at their respective homes on the early morning of February 3, 2018. All of their Falun Gong books and informational materials, as well as the computers and printers that they used to print the materials, were confiscated.
The Wuxue City Procuratorate approved the practitioners’ arrests on March 12, 2018, and indicted them on August 13, 2019.
After Ms. Guo was released on bail on April 11, 2018, she lived away from home to hide from the police, only to be arrested again on July 8, 2020. She held a hunger strike after her latest arrest. Hu Xinzhi, the head of Wuxue City Police Department, claimed that they wouldn’t be responsible should she die in custody.
The five practitioners appeared in Wuxue City Court on July 23, 2020. They all denied that they were guilty of making and spreading informational materials about Falun Gong. Their lawyers also entered a not guilty plea for them and argued that there is no legal basis for the persecution. The judge announced the heavy terms against them at the end of the trial.
