(Minghui.org) Three women in Hengshui City, Hebei Province, were recently sentenced to prison for their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhu Suzhen (also known as Zhu Shuzhen), 70, was given five years. Ms. Wang Heyun, 63, and Ms. Han Fuyu, 57, were each given one year and four months.

All three were arrested on July 5, 2023, while they were talking to people about Falun Gong at the Wanghai Community Fair in Xiakou Town.

Officers from the Xiakou Township Police Station and the Wangji Township Police Station ransacked Ms. Zhu’s home around 11: 30 a.m. that day. They confiscated her Falun Gong books, computer, printer, paper cutter, flash drives, and media players. An ailing family member of hers was also taken to the Wangji Police Station, videotaped, and forced to sign over ten documents before being released late night.

The police also raided Ms. Wang and Ms. Han’s homes.

The women were admitted to the Fucheng County Detention Center hours after their arrests and transferred to the Hengshui City Detention Center on July 20, 2023.

Xu Zipeng, the political secretary and deputy director of Fucheng County Police Department, and Zhang Xiaowei, director of the Fucheng County Domestic Security Division, submitted the practitioners’ joint case to the Fucheng County Procuratorate on October 23, which then forwarded it to the Jing County Procuratorate. The latter indicted them on November 30, 2023, and moved their case to the Jing County Court.

The three practitioners appeared in the Jing County Court on March 1, 2024. Judges Juan Baoding and Jiang Aimin presided over their trial. According to an insider, Ms. Zhu suffered from incontinence and was taken away shortly after the hearing started.

The judges later secretly sentenced Ms. Zhu to five years and Ms. Wang and Ms. Han to one year and four months each. Only when Ms. Zhu’s son and daughter went to the detention center to visit her did they learn about her sentence and that she’d been admitted to the Shijiazhuang Women’s Prison. They went to the prison to visit her, but the guards turned them away.