(Minghui.org) A 50-year-old resident of Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province, was sentenced to four-and-a-half years on January 4, 2024 for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Mr. Zou Feiyu was admitted to the Wuxi Prison not long after his wrongful conviction and has since been denied family visits.
Mr. Zou was arrested on the morning of July 10, 2022, while distributing Falun Gong informational materials. Sixteen officers from the Yushan Town Police Station raided his home and confiscated more than 50 Falun Gong books and other materials.
Officers from the Chengbei Police Station arrested Mr. Zou’s wife Ms. Chen Shasha later that day. It is unclear whether she also practiced Falun Gong, but the police targeted her after a surveillance camera recorded her accompanying Mr. Zou to distribute Falun Gong materials.
Ms. Chen was interrogated at the Changjiang Police Station and later released on bail. Her husband remained in custody and was issued a formal arrest warrant on August 18, 2022.
Mr. Zou stood trial in May 2023, and his wife was not notified of the hearing. He was sentenced to 4.5 years on January 4, 2024, and his wife was sentenced to one year on an unknown date. Ms. Chen was allowed to serve time outside of prison because she was still recovering from heart surgery. Mr. Zou was admitted to the Wuxi Prison.
Two Previous Prison Sentences Totaling 13 Years
Mr. Zou, a native of Pingjiang City, Hunan Province, was admitted to Northeast Normal University in 1993. At the recommendation of his professor Mr. Bai Xiaojun, he began to practice Falun Gong in November 1996. After graduating in July 1997, he became a teacher at a middle school in Kunshan City, Jiangsu Province. He married his first wife Jiang Haiqiu in December 1998, and they welcomed their son in May 2000.
On January 5, 2001, when their son was only seven months old, they were both arrested after the police found out they were printing informational materials about Falun Gong. Mr. Zou was sentenced to eight years and fired from his job at the school. He survived brutal torture and was released on November 6, 2006.
Ms. Jiang was given two years of forced labor. After she was released, she stopped practicing Falun Gong and didn’t want Mr. Zou to practice it either. They agreed to divorce in January 2007. Mr. Zou has custody of their six-year-old son and Ms. Jiang soon re-married.
While Mr. Zou was serving time, Mr. Bai, the professor who’d introduced him to Falun Gong, was tortured to death on July 18, 2003 in the Chaoyanggou Forced Labor Camp in Changchun City, Jilin Province.
Mr. Zou was arrested again on April 28, 2010, and sentenced to five years. During his incarceration, his son, who was in the fourth grade, lived with his mother.
Mr. Zou was released on April 27, 2015. A month later, Ms. Jiang died of lung cancer at the age of 41, just weeks before their son was to take the high-school entrance exam. Due to the persecution his family had to endure, the boy developed severe depression.
Mr. Zou married Ms. Chen during the 2022 Chinese New Year in February, only to be arrested five months later.
Related Report:
Arrested Five Months after Wedding, Former Middle School Teacher Secretly Tried for His Faith
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