(Minghui.org) The Fushun City Intermediate Court in Liaoning Province recently ruled to uphold a one-year prison sentence of a local resident for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Miao Shuqing, 74, was convicted by the Wanghua District Court in November 2023. Her appeals hearing was held on February 6, 2024. Prosecutor Wang Xin from the Fushun City Procuratorate read the same indictment that got her sentenced without any additional information. Judge Yu Hongbin ruled to reject Ms. Miao’s appeal at an unknown date.
Ms. Miao is likely to still be held at the Fushun City Detention Center at the time of writing. Her latest sentence was preceded by two prior jail terms totaling eight years, also for practicing Falun Gong. During both prison terms, she was brutally tortured. During one torture session, the prison guards shocked her in the eyes with electric batons. Her left eye later went completely blind and her right eye only had a 20/200 vision acuity. Her pension was suspended in June 2016, one month after she finished her second prison term.
Details of Ms. Miao’s Latest Persecution
Ms. Miao’s latest sentence stemmed from her arrest on June 15, 2022, when she and three other practitioners went to a fair in Wanghua District, Fushun City to distribute Falun Gong informational materials. The arresting officers from the Guchengzi Police Station released the other three practitioners hours later and Ms. Miao the next day.
In mid-August 2022, the Guchengzi Police Station delivered an “on bail pending trial notice” to Ms. Miao’s daughter and deceived her into paying a 5,000-yuan bail bond on behalf of her mother.
To avoid being prosecuted for her faith, Ms. Miao went into hiding. She returned home several months later and went on a trip to Dalian City (a metropolis about 280 miles to the south of Fushun City) with her family in August 2023. When she presented her ID to purchase a ticket at a tourist attraction in Dalian on August 11, it raised an alarm when the cashier scanned it. The police monitored her family members’ phones and tracked Ms. Miao down. Six officers from Benxi City (which is about 50 miles south of Fushun City) traveled 230 miles to Dalian that day and seized Ms. Miao when she was boarding a bus bound for Fushun City.
Officers from the Guchengzi Police Station picked Ms. Miao up from Benxi and took her straight to the Fushun City Detention Center. They contacted her daughter the next day and told her to sign a temporary detention notice for Ms. Miao.
The Wanghua District Court held a hearing of her case at the detention center on November 7, 2023.
Prosecutor Chen Guangsheng (+86-24-56809931) read out aloud the indictment against Ms. Miao. It stated that she and the aforementioned three other practitioners each testified during the police interrogation that they agreed to meet at a certain place at the fair on June 15, 2022, and described the clothes they would wear that day.
Ms. Miao refuted this and said that she never “confessed” to such a thing. She pointed out that the so-called confessions were undoubtedly fabricated by the police. She told how she was previously twice jailed for her faith in Falun Gong and brutally tortured each time. During one torture session, the prison guards shocked her in the eyes with electric batons. Her left eye later went completely blind and her right eye only had a 20/200 vision acuity. Being legally blind, she couldn’t make out the shape of a person right in front of her, much less the color of the clothing the person wore.
Ms. Miao’s daughter also defended her constitutional right to freedom of belief and testified how Falun Gong restored her health and helped her become a better person. When Ms. Miao was young, she fell and broke her hip while collecting firewood in the mountain. Her injuries never fully healed. She had difficulty walking, sleeping, and turning over. She developed more illnesses after she turned 40, including a swollen face and legs; severe heart conditions (abnormal heartbeats and insufficient blood supply to the heart); rhinitis; cervical spondylosis; and a blood disease that resulted in itching all over her body.
All her symptoms disappeared after Ms. Miao took up Falun Gong on September 3, 1996, when she was 47. Her itchy skin became smooth and she was able to do household chores without getting out of breath. She also took good care of her blind mother-in-law and paralyzed sister-in-law.
Ms. Miao’s daughter said that her mother’s distribution of Falun Gong materials was out of a simple wish to help more people get to know Falun Gong and possibly enjoy its health benefits as she did. Such an act caused no harm to any individual or society at large, and should never have been used as evidence to prosecute Ms. Miao.
Judge Gang Jia (+86-24-57567257) ignored Ms. Miao’s and her daughter’s request for her acquittal and proceeded to convict her days after the hearing.
Related Reports:
73-year-old Nearly Blind Woman Forced to Live Away from Home to Avoid Persecution of Her Faith
Ms. Miao Shuqing Sentenced to Prison for the Second Time
Miao Shuqing from Fushun City, Liaoning Province Suffers Years of Persecution
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Category: Torture of Women
