(Minghui.org) A 64-year-old resident of Dongning City, Heilongjiang Province was sentenced to three and a half years on December 22, 2023 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Ms. Xiao Hua is currently appealing the wrongful conviction.
Ms. Xiao was arrested on the morning of September 19, 2023 after being reported for talking to a veteran about Falun Gong. The arresting officers deceived her daughter into going to the Dongning City Police Department by saying that they needed her to pick up her mother’s belongings.
As soon as Ms. Xiao’s daughter got there, the police forced her to lead them to her mother’s place. They opened the door with the key snatched from Ms. Xiao and confiscated her Falun Gong books and informational materials. They put her under criminal detention and took her to the Mudanjiang City Detention Center later that day. She was issued a formal arrest warrant in late September 2023.
Ms. Xiao had a systolic blood pressure reading of 210 mmHg (a normal range is no more than 120) on October 11, 2023 and was admitted to a special ward in the Mudanjiang Medical School (known to the locals as the police hospital). Her blood pressure shot up to 230/140 mmHg at the special ward. The police tried to get her back to the Mudanjiang City Detention Center, but she was denied admission each time due to her persistent high blood pressure.
The Hailin City Court convicted Ms. Xiao on December 22, 2023. Both Hailin City and Dongning City are under the administration of Mudanjiang City. The details of Ms. Xiao’s indictment, trial, and sentencing remain to be investigated. It is also unclear whether she is still being held at the police hospital at the time of writing.
Taking up Falun Gong
Ms. Xiao used to suffer from a myriad of diseases, including rheumatism, stomach disease, colitis, heart disease, kidney disease, anemia, insomnia, cranial neuralgia, and cervical spondylosis. Her heart disease had become so severe that her doctors declared it incurable.
Just when she lost hope in life, a local Falun Gong practitioner gave her a copy of Zhuan Falun, the main teaching of Falun Gong. When she read the book for the second time, all of her symptoms disappeared.
Ms. Xiao also learned to be a good person by following Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She was working in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, at the time, and her job responsibilities involved purchasing food ingredients for her company cafeteria. While it was common practice for people in her position to collude with food suppliers to fabricate purchase amounts on the invoices (i.e., writing higher amounts for reimbursement purposes on the invoices, when in fact spending less on said purchases), Ms. Xiao never did so and thus earned respect from both her manager and food suppliers.
After the persecution began, Ms. Xiao remained firm in her faith and used various opportunities to tell people how Falun Gong was nothing like what was depicted in the communist regime’s hate propaganda. She was targeted and arrested a few times.
Past Persecution
Ms. Xiao mailed a letter to the Dongning Town Government in November 2000, sharing how she had benefited from practicing Falun Gong. Dongning Town is under the administration of Dongning City.
The town government turned over the letter to the Dongning City Police Department, which dispatched officers to arrest her on November 30 of that year. Officer Lin Xiaowei beat her during the interrogation, causing her face to swell. Ms. Xiao was taken to a detention center and held there for 72 days. She was also forced to pay 4,000 yuan before her release.
Officer Lin arrested Ms. Xiao again in November 2004 and kept her detained for 22 days. She was beaten by an inmate during her detention. Lin admitted that he had to arrest her per orders from high-ups.
Ms. Xiao was arrested again on February 24, 2011 and held at the Suifen River Detention Center for ten days.
Chief Wang Wei of the Daohe Town Police Station arrested Ms. Xiao and six other local practitioners on January 9, 2012 and took them to the Dongning City Detention Center. Ms. Xiao was later sentenced to three years and forced to do hard labor without pay for up to 16 hours every day at the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison.
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