79-year-old Woman Faces Prosecution for Her Faith, Family Harassed

(Minghui.org) Ms. Huang Zheng, 79, of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, is facing prosecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Huang’s sister-in-law Ms. Wang Xueying was arrested in 2020 after surveillance cameras caught her distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. When the police interrogated her, she said that she had gotten the materials from Ms. Huang. Taohuawu Police Station officers ransacked Ms. Huang’s residence and found a few Falun Gong booklets. Ms. Huang was taken to the police station and interrogated for six hours. Due to her age, she was released on bail.

On July 5, 2021, three officers from the Taohuawu Police Station descended on Ms. Huang’s home and told her she had to go with them to the Wujiang Procuratorate to answer some questions.

Thinking it might be an opportunity to explain the basic facts about Falun Gong to the police, Ms. Huang went with them. At the procuratorate, a female prosecutor in her 40s shouted at her, “Do you know Wang Xueying?”

Ms. Huang replied, “I won’t answer your question. I didn’t do anything wrong or violate any law.”

The prosecutor continued to shout, “You gave that stuff to Wang Xueying. She is suffering tremendously and it’s all your fault. You hurt her family so much! Don’t you have any compassion at all?”

The prosecutor then told Ms. Huang that she could start looking for a lawyer to represent her and the police took her home.

Ms. Huang called Ms. Wang’s family after she got home and learned that Ms. Wang was there and wasn’t suffering anything.

Ms. Huang also confirmed that the police had called and questioned her sister, Ms. Huang Fengjuan, before taking the older Ms. Huang to the procuratorate.

Ms. Huang, a retired Chinese medicine doctor, has been targeted by the authorities in the past few years for her faith in Falun Gong. The local 610 Office, an extralegal agency created to persecute Falun Gong, arranged for people to stay outside of her home and questioned whoever came to visit her ailing husband.

Ms. Huang was previously arrested on the evening of May 12, 2017. Her Falun Gong books were confiscated. She and three other practitioners—Ms. Cao Zhiying, Ms. Zhao Xiuzhen, and Ms. Liu Ximei—were tried in the Wujiang Court on March 6, 2018. Ms. Zhao and Ms. Liu were sentenced to three years with four years probation on September 4. They were exempted from serving time and released. Ms. Huang and Ms. Cao were each given one year and six months. They were released on November 11, 2018, after serving their terms.