(Minghui.org) A Tieling City, Liaoning Province resident was sentenced to five years and fined 10,000 yuan on September 15, 2022. The wrongful conviction came only two months after she was arrested for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhang Hui, 47, was arrested at home on the morning of July 13, 2022. Her Falun Gong books, laptop, and printer were confiscated. The police returned in the afternoon and searched her home again. Her incapacitated parents, who had been relying on her for care, were terrified.
The police held Ms. Zhang at the Tieling City Detention Center. The Changtu County Procuratorate approved her arrest on July 21. The Changtu County Court held a video hearing of Ms. Zhang’s case on August 30 and announced the verdict on September 15.
Ms. Zhang took up Falun Gong in May 1998. On July 20, 1999, the day when the persecution started, her workplace didn’t allow her, then 3-months pregnant, to take a lunch break and instead ordered her to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong and turn in her Falun Gong books.
Ms. Zhang was arrested in December 2001 for putting up posters about Falun Gong. She was detained for 12 days and extorted 12,000 yuan by the police.
Ms. Zhang was seized again by the police on March 15, 2007 during a group arrest of ten practitioners. The police held each of them in separate interrogation rooms, deprived them of sleep for three days and starved them. The practitioners were forced to stand facing the wall if they didn’t cooperate with the police. Four months later, Ms. Zhang was sentenced to three years with four years probation and a 60,000 yuan fine.
During the probation, Ms. Zhang faced constant harassment, especially around holidays or anniversaries related to Falun Gong. She was also forced to turn in thought reports to the police station and workplace every month and not allowed to travel out of town. The harassment continued when her term expired.
Due to the persecution, Ms. Zhang’s husband divorced her. She and her child were left destitute when her workplace withheld her salary during her probation, giving her only 130 yuan a month. She had to turn to her parents for help.
Ms. Zhang’s father was diagnosed with colon cancer in 2013. She took him to nearby Shenyang City for chemotherapy. On their way back home, the train station security attempted to arrest Ms. Zhang, after finding out that she is a Falun Gong practitioner through her flagged ID. Only with her father’s strong protest, did the officer allow Ms. Zhang to board the train that was about to leave.
Xing Naixin (邢乃新), president of Changtu County Court: +86-13941001956Huang Dongxue (黄冬雪), prosecutor of Changtu County Procuratorate: +86-18241096588Tian Fengjie (田凤杰), head of Qinghe District Domestic Security Office: +86-13941097000, +86-18641034070
(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)