82-year-old Man Sentenced to Three Months for His Faith

(Minghui.org) An 82-year-old man was sentenced to three months for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Wu Huaxin, of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, went to attend the hearing of the case against two local Falun Gong practitioners, Ms. Xuan Xiaomei and Ms. Zhu Peiqin, at the Wujiang District Court on January 7, 2020. As he went through security screening, the bailiffs found four keepsake cards bearing the words “Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance,” the principles of Falun Gong, in his pocket.

Mr. Wu was then arrested and taken to the Songling Police Station. The police forced him to sit in an interrogation chair and questioned him about his personal information, where he got the cards, how long he had been practicing Falun Gong and whom he practiced it with. Mr. Wu insisted that he didn’t do anything wrong in practicing Falun Gong and refused to provide information about other practitioners.

The police ransacked Mr. Wu’s home in the afternoon and confiscated 418 keepsake cars, 14 magazines about quitting the Chinese Communist Party, 11 letters to the public about the persecution, 48 Falun Gong books, as well as DVDs, calendars and media players. They then took pictures of Mr. Wu with the items. No search warrant was ever presented. Mr. Wu was released on bail on the next afternoon.

The police submitted Mr. Wu’ case to the Wujiang District Procuratorate in September 2020. The prosecutor Zhou Xingrong summoned him to the procuratorate in the same month and ordered him to renounce Falun Gong, but he refused to comply.

The Wujiang District Court initially scheduled a hearing of Mr. Wu’s case on September 15, 2020, but later postponed it to December 14, 2020. Two lawyers represented Mr. Wu and entered a not guilty plea for him. His family wasn’t allowed to attend the session. 

The judge indicated that he intended to dismiss the case, saying that “due to an unavoidable cause” he was unable to hear the case for a long time. The prosecutor, however, still recommended a nine-month prison term against Mr. Wu and fine of 2,000 yuan, on charges of “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong in China.

Mr. Wu was ordered to come to the court on May 28, 2021. When he went there, the bailiffs barred him from entering, but instead asked him to come to the side of the building and handed him a verdict ordering a three-month sentence with a 2,000-yuan fine. 

Mr. Wu was then taken to the Wujiang Detention Center and held there until August 27. 

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Liu Jun (刘军), president of Wujiang District Procuratorate: [phone]Zhou Xinglong (周兴龙), prosecutor of Wujiang District Procuratorate: [phone]Chen Xiaojun (陈晓君), president of Wujiang District Court: [phone], [phone]

(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)

Related report:

82-Year-Old Arrested While Attending a Hearing, Tried 11 Months Later