(Minghui.org) Two residents of Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, were sentenced to 4.5 years for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Wu Daofen, 80, is serving time at the Guizhou Province Women’s Prison. Mr. Jiang Chaolin, an 82-year-old retired physician, is jailed at the Dujun Prison. Their cases are unrelated, but both had special family circumstances that prevented the news of their sentencing from being reported earlier. Ms. Wu is separated from her husband, and Mr. Jiang is divorced. Both of their children do not support their parents’ practice of Falun Gong for fear of being implicated by the Chinese Communist Party. With no close family members seeking justice for them, it became harder for their friends to learn of their latest ordeals.
Mr. Jiang was arrested around April 2024. According to insiders, prior to his arrest, someone asked if he had a certain kind of Chinese herbal medicine. He said yes and invited that person to come to his home to pick up the medicine on a certain day. He ended up being arrested that day. The arresting officers announced that a local court had sentenced him to 4.5 years and took him straight to the Dujun Prison. There are many unknown questions as to how the police could have delivered a verdict and taken Mr. Jiang into custody when there was no report of any prior arrest, indictment, or trial.
Ms. Wu’s time of arrest was unknown, but according to an insider, she was likely arrested in 2023 for publishing a solemn declaration on Minghui.org to nullify statements that she was previously forced to write to renounce and denounce Falun Gong. Minghui.org reported earlier this year that at least 13 Falun Gong practitioners in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province were arrested or harassed in the second half of 2023 for the same reason. Ms. Wu was not among the 13 practitioners mentioned in the report but the insider revealed that she was also arrested along with them.
There was also a report that Ms. Wu was briefly detained in April, June, and October 2022 prior to her latest arrest. A friend of hers said that she had not seen Ms. Wu since July 2023. The friend ran into Ms. Wu’s sister recently and learned of her wrongful conviction and prison admission.
Mr. Jiang’s Past Persecution
Mr. Jiang took up Falun Gong in 1995 and soon recovered from his numerous illnesses. He held firm to his faith after the persecution began in 1999 and was repeatedly targeted.
Officer Bi Jun from the Baiyun District Police Department attempted to arrest Mr. Wu at his workplace, Qiye Hospital, on May 11, 2001. He managed to escape and called his supervisor two hours later to explain his situation and ask for a leave. The supervisor suspended him instead and only gave him 200 yuan as a monthly stipend.
Mr. Jiang was arrested on September 18, 2001, while distributing Falun Gong informational materials. He was taken to the Zhongba Labor Camp on November 11 that year to serve a two-year term. He was tortured to the point of being in critical condition and then released on parole.
Mr. Jiang was arrested again on March 18, 2004 and given three years of forced labor the following month. He was often held in solitary confinement while serving time at the Zhongba Labor Camp. The guards also subjected him to other forms of abuse, including sleep deprivation, standing for long hours, and denial of restroom use. Around June 2004, the guards instigated inmates to beat him so severely that they broke two of his ribs. He had severe swelling from his waist down and was unable to walk or eat.
Mr. Jiang went to Yunnan Province to visit his brother-in-law in February 2019. He was set to board a train on February 10 that year to return to Guizhou but was arrested at the train station. The police interrogated him for almost eight hours and invalidated his train ticket before releasing him that night. He purchased another ticket the next day, and the train station police again tried to arrest him. They relented upon his strong protest.
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