(Minghui.org) A 65-year-old grandmother was sentenced to 22 months on November 17, 2023, for urging a judge not to participate in the persecution of Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been targeted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhao Li, a native of Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, has been living with her daughter’s family in the Yubei District of Chongqing in recent years to care for her granddaughter. She wrote a letter to judge Liu Lipeng of the Wujiang District Court in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, in June 2022, when she read about the judge sentencing innocent Falun Gong practitioners. She urged Liu to stop participating in the persecution.
Liu forwarded the letter to the Xinpaifang Police Station in the Yubei District, resulting in Ms. Zhao’s arrest on July 18, 2022. The police forced her to sign the interrogation record before releasing her on bail that night. They submitted her case, which included the letter she wrote to Li, to the Jiangbei District Procuratorate in May 2023.
Jiangbei and Yubei are among the 26 districts in Chongqing. The Jiangbei District Procuratorate has been designated to handle Falun Gong cases in the region.
Ms. Zhao was summoned to the procuratorate on June 6 for questioning. She asked prosecutor Liu Jie what law she had allegedly broken. Liu blurted out, “There are laws all over the place. Go find a law yourself!” Ms. Zhao couldn’t believe a government official would talk such nonsense and again demanded to see legal documents to justify the persecution of Falun Gong. Liu had nothing to say. Ms. Zhao refused to sign the interrogation records.
Ms. Zhao appeared in the Jiangbei District Court on October 24, 2023, to face charges that she “undermined law enforcement with a cult organization.” She challenged prosecutor Liu and presiding judge Huang Ya to elaborate on which law she had allegedly undermined to cause what harm to whom. Neither of them was able to answer her. Instead, prosecutor Liu kept slandering Falun Gong, labeling it a cult, despite the fact that no enacted law in China has ever done so and that no law deems practicing Falun Gong a crime.
Liu also accused Ms. Zhao of being stubborn and suggested that the judge give her a longer term. Judge Huang stopped Ms. Zhao from reading the defense statement she had prepared. Huang announced on November 17, 2023, that Ms. Zhao was sentenced to 22 months in prison. She was taken to the Yubei District Detention Center after being sentenced.
Past Persecution
This is not the first time that Ms. Zhao has been targeted for her faith in Falun Gong. She went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong shortly after the persecution began in July 1999. She was taken back to Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, and held in a forced labor camp for a year and a half. She was brutally tortured in Shaanxi Province Women’s Labor Camp and barely survived.
The Supreme People’s Court issued “registration system reform opinions” in 2015, promising to guarantee the registration and processing of all complaints filed. After this new policy took effect on May 1, 2015, Falun Gong practitioners across China began to file criminal complaints against former CCP leader Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong and causing them irreparable damage.
After Ms. Zhao filed a lawsuit against Jiang, she again became a target for persecution. She was on her way home after finishing her night shift early on the morning of April 15, 2016, when she was arrested by agents from the Yanta District Domestic Security Office in Xi’an City. They held her at the Yanta District Detention Center and accused her of “having established contacts with so many people.” The Yanta District Court sentenced her to two and a half years in the Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison in early February 2018.
Ms. Zhao’s husband died shortly after her daughter was born, and she raised their daughter all by herself. Her daughter landed a job in Chongqing after graduating from college. Ms. Zhao moved in with her daughter after she was released to help take care of her granddaughter.
Related Report:
Once Jailed for 2.5 Years, Shaanxi Native Faces Prosecution in Chongqing for Her Faith in Falun Gong
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