(Minghui.org) A 66-year-old grandmother has been denied family visits since she was taken to the Chongqing Women’s Prison in early 2024 to serve a 22-month term for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Zhao Li, a native of Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province, has been living with her daughter’s family in the Yubei District of Chongqing in recent years to care for her granddaughter. She wrote a letter to judge Liu Lipeng of the Wujiang District Court in Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, in June 2022, when she read about the judge sentencing innocent Falun Gong practitioners. She urged Liu to stop participating in the persecution.
Liu forwarded the letter to the Xinpaifang Police Station in the Yubei District, resulting in Ms. Zhao’s arrest on July 18, 2022. She was released on bail hours later. The Jiangbei District court, which has been designated to handle Falun Gong cases in the region, heard her case on October 24, 2023. She was allowed to go home after the hearing and was sentenced to 22 months on November 17, 2023.
Ms. Zhao was taken back into custody at the Yubei District Detention Center following her conviction and transferred to the Chongqing Women’s Prison in early 2024. In addition to denied family visits, her family wasn’t allowed to make cash deposits for her to buy daily necessities either. They are very worried about her now.
Ms. Zhao took up Falun Gong in 1997, the year when both her mother and husband died. Seeing that she struggled to cope with the unimaginable loss, a relative recommended Falun Gong to her. She found hope after reading the book and has been practicing Falun Gong since.
After the communist regime launched the persecution in 1999, Ms. Zhao went to Tiananmen Square in Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong on December 24, 2000. She was arrested and taken back to Xi’an City, Shaanxi Province. The police gave her a 1.5-year term at the Shaanxi Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp. She was under 24/7 monitoring by the inmates, who beat and verbally abused her at will. They constantly forced her to stand for long hours and threatened to shock her with electric batons. She felt like she was suffocating due to the tremendous mental pressure. She suffered a mental breakdown and passed out. Yet the guards still took her to a dark room and savagely beat her.
In 2015, the Supreme People’s Court issued “registration system reform opinions,” promising to guarantee the registration and processing of all complaints filed. After this new policy took effect on May 1, 2015, Falun Gong practitioners across China began to file criminal complaints against former CCP leader Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong and causing them irreparable damage.
After Ms. Zhao filed a lawsuit against Jiang, she again became a target for persecution. She was on her way home after finishing her night shift early on the morning of April 15, 2016, when she was arrested by agents from the Yanta District Domestic Security Office in Xi’an City. They held her at the Yanta District Detention Center and accused her of “having established contacts with so many people.” The Yanta District Court sentenced her to two and a half years in the Shaanxi Province Women’s Prison in early February 2018. She finished serving her term in the detention center and was released in October 2018.
65-Year-Old Grandmother Sentenced to 22 Months for Urging a Judge Not to Persecute Falun Gong
Once Jailed for 2.5 Years, Shaanxi Native Faces Prosecution in Chongqing for Her Faith in Falun Gong