(Minghui.org) A Kunming City, Yunnan Province, resident was sentenced to 3.5 years with a 10,000-yuan fine on April 22, 2024, for his faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Liu Zhiming, 51, worked as a mail carrier and a ride-share driver before staying home full-time to care for his autistic sister and 9-year-old son. The family relied on the sole income of his wife, a babysitter. After he was arrested on November 16, 2023, his wife was also arrested and interrogated. Her deposition was used against him without her knowledge. She also lost her babysitting job due to the incident. She is now job hunting while caring for her son and trying to get her sister-in-law back home after the latter was forcibly taken to a psychiatric hospital by the authorities.
Mr. Liu Zhiming and his son.
Mr. Liu’s Arrest and Sentence
Several officers of the Jinbi Police Station broke into Mr. Liu’s home around 7 a.m. on November 16, 2023. Many of his personal items were confiscated, including his and his son’s cell phones. Both his sister and son witnessed his arrest and the home raid.
Around the same time, the police called his wife, Ms. Cheng Yun, 39, who was living in her employer’s home to care for the latter’s child. She was arrested shortly after and taken to the Jinbi Police Station for interrogation. Her deposition was later used by the police as prosecution evidence against Mr. Liu.
Mr. Liu was taken to the Xishan District Detention Center. His arrest was approved on November 22, 2023. Shortly after the police submitted his case to the Xishan District Procuratorate, he was indicted and had his case forwarded to the Xishan District Court.
Ms. Cheng hired a lawyer to represent Mr. Liu. Twenty minutes before her husband’s trial was to begin at 9: 30 a.m. on April 19, 2024, the court suddenly called her to say that they rejected the lawyer’s legal representation of Mr. Liu. Judge Cheng Yijun (no relation) announced three days later to sentence Mr. Liu to 3.5 years with a 10,000-yuan fine.
Wife’s Interrogation
Around the same time when the police broke into Mr. Liu’s home, Ms. Cheng received a call from an unknown number. The caller claimed that he was from the local education bureau and he wanted to know why her son had stopped going to school. Not knowing about her husband’s arrest, she urged the caller to contact him for details. She hung up the call and didn’t answer when it called again.
Just two minutes later, someone knocked on her employer’s door and still asked about her son’s absence from school. She went downstairs with them and was surrounded by seven officers, two of whom were in police uniform. One uniformed officer flashed an ID before her but quickly put it away without allowing her to see what’s written on it.
The police took Ms. Cheng to the Jinbi Police Station and led her into an interrogation room. Two officers came in and began to question her without revealing their identities. They demanded to know the reason for her son’s absence from school. She said he was having a cold and fever and was resting at home. The officers claimed that it was illegal for her son to miss school and that they were there to help her family to solve problems, including finding care for her sister-in-law so her husband may reenter the workforce. They also asked what her husband usually did during the day and whom he had frequent contact with. She told them that her husband was staying at home to care for their son and his sister, and didn’t go out very often.
Several hours later, the officers came back and asked Ms. Cheng whether she knew about her husband’s practice of Falun Gong. She noted that the police selectively recorded what she said about her husband when she was forced to sign the interrogation record.
The police left but returned hours later. They forced Ms. Cheng to sign a statement to promise three things. She could only remember two of the three requirements. One of them was that she must make sure her son attended school every day and the other one was that her son wasn’t allowed to practice Falun Gong before he reached 18.
For the entire day Ms. Cheng was held at the police station, no officer showed their IDs to her or explained to her what the case was about. She later learned that one of the officers that handled the case was Liu Wang. Before allowing her to leave after 9 p.m. that day (March 16, 2023), the police forced her to sign a summons.
Upon finding out that her deposition was used by the police as prosecution evidence against her husband, Ms. Cheng submitted a statement to the police, saying that she said those things after being threatened and deceived by the police and she deemed the information invalid.
Autistic Sister Taken to Psychiatric Hospital
While interrogating Ms. Cheng, the police mentioned that they could arrange to send her sister-in-law to a nursing home. She didn’t agree.
Ms. Cheng returned to her own home to see two residential committee staffers. They said they “accompanied” her son for the entire day since her husband’s arrest. Her son told her that his autistic aunt was taken away by the community workers to a hospital.
Ms. Cheng questioned the residential committee staffers as to how the authorities could commit her sister-in-law to the hospital without her guardians’ signatures. The staffers claimed that she went with them voluntarily.
Ms. Cheng also learned that the police called her sister Hua (alias) shortly after she was taken to the police station. They lied to Hua that Ms. Cheng, her husband and their son were all at the police station. Hua went to the police station three times to inquire about their case, but the police refused to provide further information and didn’t allow her to see them. With her persistent questioning, the police finally told her that only Ms. Cheng and Mr. Liu were at the police station and their son was still at home.
Ms. Cheng later confirmed that her sister-in-law was taken to the psychiatric hospital. About one week later, she learned that her sister-in-law couldn’t stand the hospital environment and asked to go home. However, the attending physician claimed that the same three departments that sent her sister-in-law in, including the Jinbi Police Station, the residential committee, and an unknown government agency, must all sign paperwork for hospital discharge.
After the incident, Ms. Cheng’s employer fired her. She is now looking for a new job while taking care of her son by herself and trying to get her sister-in-law back home.
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