Two Liaoning Residents, 55 and 74, Sentenced to Prison for Practicing Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Two Shenyang City, Liaoning Province residents were sentenced to prison on December 30, 2022 for practicing Falun Gong. The higher court denied their appeals and ruled to uphold their original verdicts on February 17, 2023.

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

When Ms. Lin Lihong, 55, took a taxi on November 11, 2021, she talked to the driver, surnamed Liu, about Falun Gong and gave him a card with information about the practice. Liu reported her to the police, who followed Ms. Lin when she visited another practitioner, Ms. Zhang Wenzhi, 74, that same day.

The police arrested Ms. Lin the next morning and confiscated her Falun Gong books, a photo of Falun Gong’s founder, and her cellphone. She was taken to the Shenyang City No. 1 Detention Center afterwards and has been held there since. 

In the afternoon, the police arrested Ms. Zhang and seized her Falun Gong books, a photo of Falun Gong’s founder and some calendars with information about Falun Gong that she was still making at home. She was released the next day and placed on residential surveillance. 

Prosecutor Yi Xingliang of the Shenyang Economic and Technological Development Zone Procuratorate indicted both practitioners on February 21, 2022, charging them with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong practitioners.

The practitioners stood trial at the Shenyang Economic and Technological Development Zone Court on December 30, 2022. The presiding judge, Yang Song, sentenced Ms. Lin to four years and three months, with a 5,000-yuan fine. Ms. Zhang was given three years and fined 3,000 yuan. Two other judges involved in their case were Zhou Minglan and Li Chunmei.

The practitioners appealed at the Shenyang City Intermediate Court. Presiding judge Liu Dayong and two other judges, Yu Xiaowei and Song Yongzheng, ruled to uphold their original verdicts on February 17, 2023. 

This isn’t the first time that both practitioners have been sentenced. Ms. Zhang was previously sentenced to three years with three years probation and a 10,000-yuan fine by the Shenhe District Court on April 25, 2016. Ms. Lin was given a one-year sentence with a 10,000-yuan fine by the same Shenhe District Court on May 11, 2016.