(Minghui.org) Five of the eight Anlu City, Hubei Province, residents who were arrested in late 2023 for their shared faith in Falun Gong were wrongly convicted in 2024. The case status of the remaining three practitioners remains to be investigated.

Ms. Wu Xiufang, 73, Ms. Mao Cuiying, Ms. Xu Guiyun, and Ms. Shi Liying, around 70, were each sentenced to prison terms of around seven months with 3,000-yuan fines on April 17, 2024.

Ms. Kong Jiuhong was sentenced to seven years on May 7, 2024. The presiding judge dared her lawyer and family to sue him anywhere they wanted when they said they would appeal her sentence.

It is unclear whether Ms. Liu Ping, Ms. Yang Furong, and Ms. Sun Youlan have already been tried.

The eight practitioners were arrested months apart in 2023 (with Ms. Liu arrested on August 11, Ms. Xu, Ms. Sun, Ms. Mao, and Ms. Shi on September 19, Ms. Wu and Ms. Kong both on October 24, and Ms. Yang on November 15). All were initially taken to the Changsong Brainwashing Center.

Ms. Kong started a hunger strike the day of her arrest and at one point became seriously ill.

Due to the intimidation and intensive brainwashing attempting to force her to renounce Falun Gong, Ms. Yang began to experience high blood pressure and numbness in her hands and feet. The authorities secretly transferred her to the Puai Hospital on November 18, 2023.

Prosecutor Hou Juan of the Anlu City Procuratorate later indicted Ms. Kong, Ms. Wu, Ms. Mao, Ms. Xu, and Ms. Shi (exact dates unknown). The five practitioners appeared in the Anlu City Court on April 17, 2024. It is unclear though whether they were tried jointly or separately that day.

Judge Yang Yaolong presided over the trial(s). He sentenced Ms. Wu, Ms. Mao, Ms. Xu, and Ms. Shi at the end of the hearing on April 17. It is unclear whether these four women have been released (since it has been more than seven months since their arrests).

Yang did not issue a ruling in Ms. Kong’s case that day. He threatened though to give her at least seven years when she refused to admit her “guilt” in practicing Falun Gong. Ms. Kong refuted that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. She also testified against the police for arresting her without any legal basis, and torturing her at the brainwashing center. The police later transferred her to the Yunmeng Detention Center and then Hanchuan Psychiatric Hospital even though she was mentally healthy.

Yang indeed sentenced Ms. Kong to seven years on May 7, 2024. When her lawyer and family said they would appeal, judge Yang dared them to sue him anywhere they wanted.

This wasn’t the first time that Ms. Kong, a former textile factory employee, had been targeted for upholding her faith. She was arrested in February 2000 for going to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong. She was escorted back to Anlu, held in the Anlu City No. 1 Detention Center for two and a half months, and fined 2,000 yuan. She was arrested again in October 2002 and force-fed over 90 times within a month. Her next arrest was on May 25, 2016, after being reported for talking to villagers about Falun Gong. She was taken to the Hubei Province Brainwashing Center in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei, on June 1 that year and held for an unknown amount of time.

Related Reports:

Anlu City, Hubei Province: Eight Falun Gong Practitioners Detained, Two in Precarious Conditions

Hubei Woman’s Life in Danger While on Hunger Strike for 18 Days and Counting