(Minghui.org) Ms. Xie Shengying, 73, from Gongan County, Hubei Province was sentenced to three years in early December 2023 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.

The Gongan County Court ordered that Ms. Xie, who was out on bail, be taken to the Hubei Province Women’s Prison in Wuhan City (the capital of Hubei). She was found to have high blood pressure during the required physical examination and the prison refused to accept her. The police then took her to a hospital in Jingzhou City, which oversees Gongan County. After she was hospitalized for 13 days, Ms. Xie was taken to the Jingzhou City Detention Center, where she is still held at the time of report.

Ms. Xie’s latest persecution stems from her arrest in August 2021, after she was reported for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. The arresting officers from the Jiazhuyuan Town Police Station submitted her case to its supervising agency, the Gongan County Domestic Security Office, which in turn forwarded her case to the Gongan County Procuratorate.

Ms. Xue was indicted at an unknown date and appeared in the Gongan County Court on September 28, 2022. She testified in her own defense and explained that her telling people about Falun Gong was simply an effort to help them understand that the practice is nothing like it is depicted in the communist regime’s hate propaganda. She said that she developed severe complications after a tubal ligation in 1979 but that her decades-long suffering ended shortly after she took up Falun Gong in 1997.

Her lawyer entered a not guilty plea for her as no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. He refuted the false allegations against her by prosecutor Li.

The judge threatened to sentence Ms. Xie to four years and ordered her to sign the court proceedings. She refused and her daughter was forced to sign it on her behalf. The judge then released her on bail.

Officers from the Jiazhuyuan Town Police Station suddenly broke into Ms. Xie’s home in early December 2023 and took her to the Gongan County Court, where she was told she had just been sentenced to three years. The court then instructed the police to take her to the prison, which refused to admit her after discovering she had high blood pressure.

The police then kept Ms. Xie at a hospital in Jingzhou City for 13 days before taking her to the Jingzhou City Detention Center.

Prior to this latest persecution of Ms. Xie, she was arrested at least two other times. In June 2002, she went to neighboring Maojiagang Town to talk to people about Falun Gong and was arrested by officers from the Maojiagang Town Police Station. They held her at the Gongan County Detention Center for more than twenty days.

Ms. Xie was arrested again on the afternoon of March 23, 2021, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. Instructor Chen Yang of the Jiazhuyuan Town Police Station twice took her to a hospital for physical examinations but she was deemed unfit for detention both times. The Gongan County Detention Center refused to admit her and Chen released her the next day.