Woman Sentenced to Four Years for Pasting Couplets about Falun Gong on Her Door

(Minghui.org) A 56-year-old former accountant was recently taken to prison to serve a four-year term for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Lou Yahong, a Xuchang City, Henan Province resident, was arrested at home on December 15, 2020, moments after she returned from grocery shopping. A group of officers broke into her home and confiscated her computer and Falun Gong books. 

One officer revealed that they arrested her for the couplets she had on her door, which read, “Blessings from Heaven; Cultivating the heart for goodness, one will be blessed with happiness, longevity and health; Honoring Heaven and virtue, one will have good fortune and luck,” and, “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.”

The police held Ms. Lou at the Yulin Detention Center on criminal detention, after her initial 15-day administrative detention expired.

Her lawyer submitted a legal opinion, urging the Weidu District Procuratorate not to approve her arrest. Zheng Jianye, the director of the procuratorate, ignored the lawyer’s opinion and still approved Ms. Lou’s arrest.

Since then, the prosecutor has kept Ms. Lou’s lawyer in the dark regarding the status of her case. 

When the lawyer called the procuratorate in March 2021, he was told that the police hadn’t submitted the case yet. He called again on April 7, and still was told that the police were investigating the case.

A female prosecutor told the lawyer that they had just received the case earlier that day, when he called on April 22. She also said that it was fine for the lawyer to come the week after to review the case document. 

When the lawyer went to the procuratorate on April 28, he was surprised to learn that the receptionist couldn’t find Ms. Lou’s case document or the record of their receiving it on the computer.

Suspecting that the prosecutor may have indicted Ms. Lou, the lawyer went to the court to inquire about her case. The court receptionist did tell him that prosecutor Zheng Jianye had indicted Ms. Lou and moved her case to the court on April 22, the day that the lawyer had called the last time.

The lawyer later learned that the police had already submitted Ms. Lou’s case to the prosecutor on March 12 and the prosecutor went to the detention center to ask her some questions on March 18. Yet none of these instances were on file with the procuratorate and the person who answered the call kept telling the lawyer that they didn’t have her case when he called in March and on April 7. 

Ms. Lou stood trial at the Weidu District Court on May 26, 2021. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea for her and demanded her acquittal. None of her family members were allowed to attend the hearing. 

The judge sentenced Ms. Lou to four years with a 3,000-yuan fine in early July 2021. She appealed the verdict, but the intermediate court ruled to uphold her original sentence. 

Ms. Lou was taken to the Xinxiang Women’s Prison in early November 2021. She held a hunger strike to protest the persecution and was brutally force-fed through her nose. The torture also induced persistent high blood pressure in Ms. Lou.

This isn’t the first time that Ms. Lou has been targeted for practicing Falun Gong, which she credits for curing her rheumatoid arthritis. She was previously given one year of forced labor in October 2005 and sentenced to one year in September 2017.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Wang Wenhui (王文辉), deputy director of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee: [phone]Wang Lin (王琳), presiding judge: [phone]Zheng Jianye (郑建业), prosecutor: [phone], [phone]Feng Yu (冯宇), officer, Xiguan Police Station: [phone]

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