(Minghui.org) Four months after a 73-year-old resident of Yongji County, Jilin Province was sentenced to three and a half years for practicing Falun Gong, the presiding judge changed his sentence to five years without offering an explanation.
Mr. Liu Ji’s ordeal began on October 30, 2023, when a group of officers from the Yongji County Police Department and the Xiyang Town Police Station broke into his home and arrested him. They confiscated two printers, one computer, and several Falun Gong books before taking him to the Yongji County Police Department. He refused to answer questions during the interrogation and was slapped in the face twice by an officer.
The police took Mr. Liu to the Yongji County Detention Center, which directed him to a hospital for a required physical examination. He was found to be in poor health and denied admission by the detention center.
Mr. Liu was then released on one-year bail. The police later submitted his case to the Chuanying District Procuratorate in Jilin City, Jilin Province. Jilin City oversees Yongji County.
The procuratorate summoned Mr. Liu twice in March 2024. That same month, he was made to report to the Chuanying District Court three times and then sentenced to three and a half years. It was unclear whether the court appearances were all hearings or for other purposes. Judge Li Zhongcheng signed the verdict. Other details of the trial remain to be investigated.
Mr. Liu was ordered to serve time at the Yongji County Detention Center, but was denied admission after he was found to have high blood pressure. The court then put him under house arrest for six months.
The police took Mr. Liu to the court on July 8, 2024 and he was told he was sentenced to five years. He was confused, as he had already been sentenced to 3.5 years only four months ago, but judge Li did not offer any explanation. It is unclear whether Li declared the March trial a mistrial and re-tried and re-sentenced him, or Li simply altered the original prison sentence since he had not started serving it yet.
Li ordered Mr. Liu to have a physical examination at the Jilin City 465 Hospital right away. He was found to have dangerously high blood pressure at 220/120 mmHg, when a normal range is 120/80 mmHg or lower.
Despite Mr. Liu’s medical condition, judge Li ordered him sent to the Jilin City Detention Center. The guards there refused to admit him, and Li turned to the Yongji County Detention Center the next day (July 9). The latter detention center also declined to admit Mr. Liu given his poor health. Only then did Li allow him to go home.
Prior to his latest sentencing, Li had previously sentenced Mr. Liu to two years in 2019, also for his faith in Falun Gong.
Past Persecution
Mr. Liu suffered a compression fracture of the third lumbar vertebra after a wall fell on him while he was working on a house demolition project. The doctors said the best outcome would be for him to walk with a cane. After he took up Falun Gong in 1998, however, he made a full recovery. His decades-long stomach and kidney problems, and frozen shoulder also disappeared. Because of his positive experience with Falun Gong, he never wavered in his faith after the persecution began one year later.
He was arrested on November 12, 2019, while hanging up a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good.” The arresting officers from the Huangyu Township Police Station searched his home twice but found no Falun Gong books.
Mr. Liu developed high blood pressure after two months at the Yongji County Detention Center. Given the coronavirus epidemic, the police released him on 10,000 yuan bail on March 10, 2020.
Mr. Liu was made to stand trial at the Chuanying District Court on April 10, 2020. He was sentenced to two years and fined 3,000 yuan on May 22 of that year. The ruling bore the signatures of the aforementioned judge Li, judges Qu Fengjie and Xu Yan, as well as clerk Yan Junchen.
The police took Mr. Liu back to the detention center on July 2, 2020 after a medical exam and testing him for COVID-19. He was released around July 2022.
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