(Minghui.org) A 60-year-old Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, resident, has been admitted to the Shijiazhuang Women’s Prison to serve a five-year term for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Li Xiaoyan took up Falun Gong in 2004. She changed from a competitive and calculating person to someone who is big-hearted and understanding. She regretted that she didn’t learn Falun Gong earlier, or she wouldn’t have divorced her husband. 

Ms. Li’s prison sentence stemmed from her arrest on July 27, 2023, while she was going through security checks at the Shijiazhuang Train Station. She had planned to travel to her hometown in Yushu City, Jilin Province to visit her family. The railway police stopped her due to her flagged ID for practicing Falun Gong and arrested her upon finding paper currency printed with messages about Falun Gong in her purse. (Due to strict censorship in China, many practitioners use creative ways to raise awareness about the persecution, including printing messages on paper currency.)

Officers of the Fangxing Police Station took Ms. Li back home to raid her place. She refused to open the door. More than ten officers from the railway police station were dispatched. They forced Ms. Li’s family, who had been inside, to open the door and confiscated her Falun Gong books and informational materials. 

Ms. Li was taken away by the railway police station officers and held at the Shijiazhuang City Second Detention Center. The Shijiazhuang Railway Transport Court later sentenced her to five years. She appealed with the Beijing City Fourth Intermediate Court (Beijing Railway Transportation Intermediate Court). It ruled to uphold her original verdict in late May 2024.