(Minghui.org) Two residents of Ninghe District, Tianjin, were sentenced to prison for their faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Zhao Xiufang, 67, was given one year, and Ms. Gao Chunping, 60, received one year and three months. They are both serving time at the Tianjin Women’s Prison.
The two women’s cases were unrelated. They were both arrested in 2023 and it is unclear when the Ninghe District Court tried and convicted them.
Ms. Zhao was most recently arrested on June 25, 2023, and had her home raided. She was held at the Ninghe District Detention Center before her prison transfer.
This is not the first time that Ms. Zhao has been targeted for her faith, which she credits for returning her to health and giving her the energy to help care for her grandson. She was previously sentenced to one and a half years following her arrest on March 13, 2018. Her husband and son, who feared being implicated by her practice of Falun Gong, did not allow her to return home after her prison release. She had to rent a place to live on her own.
Prior to her latest arrest on July 27, 2023, Ms. Gao was living away from home to avoid being persecuted for her faith. Her loved ones turned her into the police, after being deceived by the police that they’d drop the case against her as soon as she signed some paperwork. She was immediately arrested and later sentenced to one year and three months.
Ms. Gao took up Falun Gong in 1999 and soon recovered from her numerous diseases. She was also no longer suicidal and had hope in life again. She treated her two stepchildren as if they were her own. She helped raise her step-grandson too and her blended family all knew it was Falun Gong that turned her into such a loving and broad-minded person.
Like Ms. Zhao, Ms. Gao was also repeatedly persecuted over the years. She went to visit a fellow practitioner on March 31, 2005, and a group of officers suddenly broke in. She managed to escape and lived away from home for several months to avoid being arrested.
Ms. Gao was arrested again on August 15, 2010, and later sentenced to three years with five years probation. Three officers seized her on December 29, 2014, while she was shopping at a local market. They held her at the local detention center for one day and extorted 3,000 yuan from her.
Years later, Ms. Gao was forced to live away from home again when the police attempted to arrest her again. After her family believed the police’s lie to drop her case, they persuaded her to return home, only to see her arrested as soon as she went to the local police station on July 27, 2023.
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