Having Lost His Wife to the Persecution of Falun Gong, Beijing Man Gets Second Prison Term for His Faith

(Minghui.org) A Daxing District, Beijing, resident was sentenced to one year and ten months with a 3,000-yuan fine for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. 

Mr. Zhang Yuhua, in his 50s, was arrested at home on March 7, 2022, after being reported for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. The arresting officers, from the Linxiao Police Station, took him to the Dawa Detention Center that night. 

Officer Yu Xi (phone number [phone]) submitted Mr. Zhang’s case to the Daxing District Procuratorate, which indicted him and forwarded his case to the Daxing District Court.

Mr. Zhang made his first court appearance on November 18, 2022. Judge Liu ([phone]) initially scheduled two more hearings for October 12 and 23, 2023, but canceled both for unknown reasons. He then set a new court date for November 6, 2023, but the details of that hearing remain to be investigated. It’s also unclear whether Mr. Zhang was sentenced on November 6 or at some point after that.

This is not the first time that Mr. Zhang has been targeted for his faith in Falun Gong. Officers from the Qingyuan Police Station seized him on October 1, 2013 after discovering that he had hung up a banner reading “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” [core tenets of Falun Gong]. Prosecutor Si Zuojun of the Daxing District Procuratorate indicted him on December 23, 2014. Judge Liu Chong of the Daxing District Court sentenced him to four years in prison. [It’s unclear whether this was the same judge Liu who most recently convicted him.]

Wife Dies at 48 After Three Years of Imprisonment

Mr. Zhang’s wife, Ms. Kang Shuxia, and his mother, Ms. Ma Shulan, 85, had also been targeted for practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Kang was given one and a half years of forced labor in the Xin’an Women’s Labor Camp in 2001. She was arrested again on November 21, 2004, while visiting Santai County, Sichuan Province and was spotted talking to people about Falun Gong there. She was sentenced to three years and suffered brutal abuse at the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan. By the time Ms. Kang was released in 2007, she had developed mental disorders as a result of the abuse. She never recovered and developed high blood pressure, kidney failure and brain bleeding around 2009. She died in 2012, at the age of 48.

Ms. Kang’s mother-in-law, Ms. Ma, was arrested three times over the years and served one and a half years in a labor camp for practicing Falun Gong. She had been living with Mr. Zhang before his arrest. Her son's recent sentencing has left her living alone despite her advanced age.