(Minghui.org) Two Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province, residents were recently sentenced to prison for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Liang Shufa, 71, was sentenced to three years and fined 6,000 yuan. Mr. Zhang Zhan’an, around 67, was given three and a half years with a 7,000-yuan fine. Both of them have been taken to the Panjin Prison on April 1, 2024. The Liaoning Province Prison Administration Bureau would assign them to other prisons shortly after.
The two practitioners were arrested on August 31, 2023 by officers of the Guta Police Department. The police seized Mr. Liang at his shoe repair stall and took him home to search his place. Even though he was found to have high blood pressure, the police still detained him at the Jinzhou City Detention Center the next day.
Mr. Zhang also had his home ransacked and his computer and other personal items confiscated. He was detained at the Jinzhou City Detention Center as well.
Both practitioners had their arrests approved by the Linghai City Procuratorate on September 13, 2023. The Linghai City Court held a hearing of their case on December 4, 2023 without informing their family members. Only when the practitioners’ families were ordered by the court to pay for their fines in early January 2024, did they learn about their prison sentences.
Mr. Liang used to suffer many ailments including arthritis and tracheitis. He became healthy again after taking up Falun Gong. For upholding his faith, he has been repeatedly harassed and detained in the past 25 years.
Mr. Zhang, a native of Huludao City and a former cement factory worker, had to stop working due to a physical condition. He took up Falun Gong in December 1995 and completely recovered three months later. In the persecution, not only him, but also his wife Ms. Li Xiuzhen and their older son were all arrested and detained for practicing Falun Gong. As a result of the arrests and detention, Ms. Li’s severe heart condition and other diseases that disappeared after learning Falun Gong relapsed. She ended up in a vegetative state following another arrest in 2007 and passed away in April 2011.
Falun Dafa Practitioner Mr. Zhang Zhan'an Subjected to PersecutionArticle in Chinese: https://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2015/7/26/双亲屡遭绑架-牙医儿子无助痛哭-313080.html