Suspected of Putting Up Falun Gong Informational Materials, Beijing Woman Sentenced to Four Years

(Minghui.org) Only five months after a 57-year-old Beijing resident finished serving a two-year prison term, she was arrested again and sentenced to four years for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Wang Lei was arrested at home on October 9, 2022 and held at the Dongcheng District Detention Center. When she appeared at the Dongcheng District Court on March 16, 2023, the prosecutor claimed that a surveillance camera recorded someone putting up Falun Gong materials at a bus station and that he suspected that person was Ms. Wang.

Ms. Wang denied having ever put up materials at the said location during the said time and pointed out that she was targeted simply because of her faith in Falun Gong. Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea for her and argued that the persecution of Falun Gong doesn’t have any legal basis. The judge announced on March 21 that Ms. Wang was sentenced to four years with an 8,000-yuan fine. She has appealed the verdict.

Past Persecution

When Ms. Wang was still a child, her mother was diagnosed with leukemia and nothing helped, despite numerous hospital visits and all kinds of Western and Traditional Chinese Medicine treatments. Ms. Wang recalled how she lived in constant fear that she might lose her mother at any time. However, her mother’s fate changed after she took up Falun Gong. After witnessing her mother’s recovery, Ms. Wang began to practice Falun Gong herself.

After the persecution started, Ms. Wang was arrested several times and incarcerated for a total of four years. 

She was arrested in July 2002 and taken to a brainwashing center. She was held in isolation, deprived of sleep and restroom use, and subjected to torture, including being pressed down with her chest touching her legs, holding her arms up while bending down against a wall, or having her legs tied up in the full lotus position for nearly eight hours. 

Torture reenactment: sitting on a small stool

Ms. Wang was arrested again on May 30, 2009 and her home was ransacked. She was later given two years at the Beijing Women’s Forced Labor Camp. She again suffered many forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, being forced to sit on a small stool for long hours without moving, and being forced to do heavy labor, mostly farm work, without pay. 

After another arrest on March 3, 2017, Ms. Wang was held at the Changping District Detention Center until April 2, 2017. 

Ms. Wang’s next arrest was on May 9, 2020 for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. She stood trial at the Xicheng District Court on May 25 and July 30, 2021 and was sentenced to two years. She appealed with the Beijing Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict in April 2022. She was released on May 10, 2022, only to be arrested again five months later and given another prison term.

Perpetrators’ contact information:

He Magen (何马根), president, Dongcheng District CourtBai Chongwei (白崇伟), judge, Dongcheng District Court: [phone]He Wei (贺卫), president, Dongcheng District Procuratorate: [phone], [phone]

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