(Minghui.org) Four residents of Shiyan City, Hubei Province are facing trial for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Hu Ling, 59, Ms. Guo Dibing, 73, and Ms. Liu Baoling, 79, were arrested on March 8, 2023, by officers of the Dongyue Police Station, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. They were interrogated at the Zhangwanbei District Police Station. Ms. Guo and Ms. Liu were released on bail on the next day, while Ms. Hu was transferred to the Niutoushan Brainwashing Center. She experienced high blood pressure, insomnia and mental disorientation and was released on bail on April 14, 2023.
Mr. Luo Qihua, 66, was arrested by officers of the Dongyue Domestic Security Division on April 11, 2023 and put on house arrest the next day. The Zhangwan District Procuratorate approved his arrest on July 3, 2023. Due to his high blood pressure and high blood sugar, the prosecutor approved his bail release on August 11.
All four practitioners’ cases were submitted to the Zhangwan District Court on June 5, 2024. Both Ms. Guo and Ms. Liu noticed that the prosecutor included large amounts of Falun Gong related items as prosecution evidence against them, but those items didn’t belong to them. Other details about their cases aren’t clear.
Prior to his latest persecution, Mr. Luo was incarcerated three more times for practicing Falun Gong. He was given three years of forced labor in September 2003 and sentenced to three years in September 2009. He endured brutal torture and frequent blood drawing while in custody. He was sentenced again to one and a half years with two years probation and a 3,000-yuan fine on December 29, 2021, by the Zhangwan District Court. When he was not detained, he faced constant police harassment and home-raid.
Ms. Guo is a retired teacher from the Zhushan County Experimental Elementary School. She used to suffer brain atrophy, anemia, and frequent headache and dizziness. She tried various treatments, but her health didn’t have any improvement. Only three days after she began to practice Falun Gong in July 1996, she regained her appetite, was full of energy and had a rosy complexion.
On January 14, 2002, for giving people a Falun Gong flyer, she was arrested on the street. The police held her arms behind her back and handcuffed her. She fainted from the violence, yet the police accused her of pretending.
Despite the cold weather, the police stripped her to her underwear to search her. After that, around 11 p.m., the police raided her home and took her back to the domestic security division. She spent the night there and was watched by two officers.
The police continued the interrogation on the next day and ordered her to sit on a photo of Falun Gong’s founder and verbally abuse him. She refused. The police verbally abused her and Falun Gong themselves.
By the time Ms. Guo was admitted to the local detention center around 6 p.m. on January 15, she hadn’t been given any food or allowed to sleep for over 30 hours. She passed out and slept for a few days. In less than ten days, her hair turned gray and she was emaciated. She was so weak that she fainted several times during an interrogation session. Eager to get her out, her family paid 10,000 yuan at the police’s demand. Pressured by the school and the student’s parents, the police released her on February 27, 2002, yet they continued to harass and monitor her daily activities afterwards.
Ms. Guo filed a complaint against the police for extorting money from her family in July 2002. In retaliation, the police arrested her again on July 18 and searched her home. She was handcuffed to the leg of a desk for five days, rendering her unable to stand up or sit. She wasn’t given any food or water and not allowed to sleep. She requested to use the restroom on the morning of July 19, but the officers who were playing cards on the side accused her of disrupting them. They told her to urinate right there and then drink her urine. They also said that because of the persecution policy, they could just say she died from suicide if they tortured her to death. The police extorted another 3,000 yuan from her family on July 20.
On the sixth day, she was transferred to the local detention center. One month later, she was taken to a brainwashing center. The brainwashing center extorted 6,000 yuan from her school and released her two months later.