(Minghui.org) Two Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, residents were recently sentenced for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Mr. Qin Shuhai, 58, was given three years. Ms. Liu Yulan, 76, was sentenced to two years.
The arrest of Mr. Qin and Ms. Liu stemmed from an incident in October 2023, when they went to nearby Maling Village to distribute informational materials about Falun Gong. The village secretary stopped them and asked who they were visiting. He then searched their tricycle and discovered four boxes of desk calendars which had information about Falun Gong. He confiscated the calendars and let them go. He later reported the two practitioners to the police.
More than ten officers, many of them in plainclothes, broke into Mr. Qin’s home on January 18, 2024 and ransacked it. They did not show their IDs or a search warrant. Mr. Qin’s 81-year-old mother, who lives with his family, trembled in fear. Mr. Qin was taken away after the raid. The same group of officers also ransacked Ms. Liu’s home on the same day and arrested her.
Four officers returned to Mr. Qin’s home the next day and asked his mother if she knew where her son and Ms. Liu got those four boxes of calendars. She said that she had no clue. When the police ordered her to sign their interrogation records and she said she was illiterate. They then had another elderly woman, who happened to be visiting, sign Mr. Qin’s mother’s name. Then they forced Mr. Qin’s mother to fingerprint the document.
Mr. Qin’s wife, who has been incapacitated since 2013 after having a stroke, was devastated by his arrest and cried for him every day. Her condition worsened quickly and she died on February 13, 2024, the fourth day of the Chinese New Year and 26 days after her husband was arrested.
Mr. Qin was detained at the Yi County Detention Center and Ms. Liu at the Jinzhou City Women’s Detention Center. Prosecutor Li Feng of the Linghai City Procuratorate approved their arrests on February 3, 2024 before indicting them weeks later. Both the Linghai City Procuratorate and Linghai City Court have been designated to handle Falun Gong cases in the greater Jinzhou area.
At 3 a.m. on April 3, Mr. Qin suffered a stroke and lost mobility on one side of his body. A detention center guard called his son and ordered him to pay for his medical treatment. The guard took Mr. Qin to the Yi County Chinese Medicine Hospital for a brain CT scan and gave him some injections after taking him back to the detention center. It’s not clear what injections were given.
Ms. Liu also developed high blood pressure in custody, with her systolic blood pressure reaching 200 mmHg, while the normal reading is 120 mmHg or lower.
Judge Huang Yanchun of the Linghai City Court held a trial for the two practitioners on April 12, 2024 and sentenced them at the end of the session.
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