For Five Months and Counting, Family Kept in Dark of Woman’s Prison Sentence and Barred from Visiting Her

(Minghui.org) Ms. Hu Suhua’s family learned from an insider on July 27, 2023 that she had been sentenced to one year for sharing information about her faith, Falun Gong. Her loved ones only knew about her arrest and weren’t given any update by the authorities about her indictment, trial, or sentencing.

Ms. Hu, a 69-year-old resident of Liuyang City, Hunan Province, was arrested at home on February 23, 2023. The arresting officers, from the Yanxi Town Police Station, targeted her because a local government official reported her for hand delivering some Falun Gong materials to him.

The police confiscated Ms. Hu’s Falun Gong books and took her to the Liuyang City Detention Center. They refused to give her family any updates about the status of her case other than saying she had been put on criminal detention. Her family hasn’t been allowed to see her even once since her arrest. Upon finding out about her prison sentence, they still don’t know any details about her sentencing or when she will be transferred to prison.

Ms. Hu’s latest ordeal was preceded by an earlier arrest on June 27, 2022, when she was reported for talking to people about Falun Gong that afternoon. More than a dozen officers from the Yanxi Town Police Station broke into her home later that day and arrested her. They also confiscated her Falun Gong books and cell phone. 

The police initially held Ms. Hu at the police station and then took her to the Liuyang City Police Department. They brought her back to the police station later that night.

Ms. Hu’s family tried to seek her release the next day, but the police claimed that they had released her at 7:00 that morning. But she didn’t return home. Two days later, the Yanxi Town Police Station officers went to raid her home again and ordered all her family and relatives to look for her. 

It turned out that Ms. Hu had managed to escape on June 28, 2022, instead of being released by the police. She returned home in December 2022, only to be arrested again two months later.