Sichuan Woman Appeals Second Wrongful Term in Four Years for Practicing Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) After over a year of detention, a woman in Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, was sentenced to four and a half years and fined 8,000 yuan for practicing Falun Gong. This is the second time that Ms. Zhao Yongxiu has been sentenced for her faith in four years.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhao, 49, went to attend the trial of four Falun Gong practitioners in the Hejiang County Court on April 2, 2021. She was stopped outside of the courthouse and taken to the police station. Several copies of Falun Gong materials in her purse were confiscated. The officers tied her in a metal chair and interrogated her. She wasn’t allowed to use the restroom.

After she was released, Ms. Zhao filed complaints against Wang Zhonghe and Ren Wei of the Hejiang County Domestic Security Office for the arrest and interrogation. In retaliation, the police arrested her on August 18, 2021, and raided her home.

When the police submitted Ms. Zhao’s case to the Hejiang County Procuratorate, the Falun Gong materials that had been confiscated from her were included as prosecution evidence. The 26 letters she wrote complaining about the police were also listed as “Falun Gong promotional materials.” Each page of the letters was counted as one piece of evidence, which ended up totaling 422 pieces of evidence.

Ms. Zhao’s lawyer urged the prosecutor to dismiss her case, but to no avail. The prosecutor indicted her on November 29, 2021. She appeared in Hejiang County Court on August 15, 2022, and her lawyer entered a “not guilty” plea for her. The judge announced her verdict on February 2, 2023.

In the appeal submitted to the Luzhou City Intermediate Court, Ms. Zhao reiterated that practicing Falun Gong has always been legal in China and that it’s wrong for the communist regime to label it as a cult and persecute it.

Ms. Zhao is still in the Luzhou City Detention Center. She was beaten and verbally abused by the inmates for doing the Falun Gong exercises in her cell. The guards also threatened to fine her.

Prior to her latest sentencing, Ms. Zhao was arrested on June 4, 2019, also by Wang Zhonghe and Ren Wei, who suspected her of distributing Falun Gong materials in her hometown of Rongshan Town. They ransacked both of her residences in Luzhou and Rongshan. She was later sentenced to one year by the Hejiang County Court.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

Ren Wei (任伟), officer, Hejiang County Domestic Security Office: [phone]Wang Zhonghe (王中和), officer, Hejiang County Domestic Security Office: [phone]Shi Wei (石伟), prosecutor, Hejiang County Procuratorate: [phone]Ding Jian (丁剑), presiding judge, Hejiang County CourtFeng Chunyan (冯春燕), judge, Hejiang County Court

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

Related report:

Luzhou City, Sichuan Province: Sixteen Residents Remain Incarcerated for Upholding Their Faith