Jilin Woman Recounts Her Arrest and Sentencing for Her Faith

(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old woman in Jilin City, Jilin Province was sentenced to one year with one year probation for distributing informational materials about her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. The police fabricated evidence against Ms. Zhao Xin and tortured her at the local detention center. She suffered poor health after being released, but the authorities still harassed her and ordered her to renounce Falun Gong.

Below is Ms. Zhao Xin’s personal account.

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After the pandemic broke out in Wuhan, I read a story about a physician couple who contracted the virus. While their lives were in danger, they recited the auspicious phrases “Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good,” and they soon recovered.

Hoping to let more people know about the story and benefit from Falun Gong, I brought a few booklets containing the story and information about Falun Gong to the farmers’ market on August 16, 2020. Before I got a chance to distribute the booklets, two people grabbed me from behind. They said they were the police and it’s illegal for me to distribute Falun Gong materials.

Neither of them wore a police uniform. One of them flashed a little badge before me, but I didn’t see clearly what it was. I tried to reason with them. They said to me, “We are enforcing the law with violence. We don’t want to listen to you.”

After I was taken to the Changchunlu Police Station, I learned that one of the officers was Wang Quan. As I refused to let them take my photos, they grabbed my hair and hit my head against the wall. I was very dizzy and had to squat. Then another officer came over and pushed me on the shoulder against the wall. He threatened to break my arm if I didn’t comply.

With the picture they forcibly took of me, the police found my ID number and address through their database. They ransacked my home and confiscated 20 Falun Gong books, 32 copies of Minghui Weekly and other personal items.

Officer Wang defamed Falun Gong and said it’s national policy to arrest Falun Gong practitioners. I replied that no law has criminalized Falun Gong in China and that I didn’t do anything wrong. Wang responded that they were the national violence agency and they would carry out any order given from above.

In the case document that was submitted to the procuratorate, I was charged with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” a standard pretext used against Falun Gong. Wang also fabricated an interrogation record of me and the number of Falun Gong materials confiscated from me, both of which were included as prosecution evidence.

I was later taken to the Jilin City Detention Center. As a result of the torture there, I developed dangerously high blood pressure and a heart condition. I was given 15 minutes only for each meal and the uneaten food would be taken away when the time was up. The food was usually a piece of rice flour cake and green leaf soup with no other sustenance. I had constant stomach pain and often had blood in my stool. At night, the place I was allowed to sleep was only one foot wide and it was difficult to lie down. During the day, I was subjected to long hours of physical torture.

Instigated by the guards, many inmates took part in persecuting us practitioners. They didn’t care about our physical condition and they would torture us as long as we were still breathing. If we tried to persuade them not to participate in the persecution, they would intensify the torture.

I was later indicted by the Chuanying District Procuratorate. After four months of detention, I was sentenced to one year with one year probation on December 18, 2020 by the Chuanying District Court.

According to Chinese law, my term should end one year since the day of my arrest, but the authorities extended my term by four months without any explanation.

I suffered from persistent symptoms upon returning home. I kept having blood and pus in my stool. I used to care for my husband, who has a severe heart condition and high blood pressure. But now given my condition, my children quit their jobs and stayed at home to take care of both of us.

The government never offered any help to my family, despite the difficulty we are facing. Yet a few staff members from the local Justice Bureau harassed me in September 2021 and ordered me to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Wang Quan (王权), officer of Changchunlu Police Station: [phone]Bai Yan (白岩), officer of Jilin City Political and Legal Affairs Committee: [phone]Jiang Naiai (姜乃嫒), prosecutor of Chuanying District Procuratorate: [phone], [phone]Li Zhongcheng (李忠诚), judge of Chuanying District Court: [phone], [phone]

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

Related report:

69-Year-Old Woman Experiencing Medical Problems in Detention and Facing Prosecution for Spreading Information About Her Faith