(Minghui.org) Two residents of Muping District, Yantai City, Shandong Province, were admitted to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison weeks apart in August 2024, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Yang Meici, 75, was sentenced to three years with a 15,000-yuan fine on January 4, 2021, and allowed to postpone serving time. She was taken back into custody in mid-August 2024 to start her prison sentence.
Ms. Yin Minghua, 62, was sentenced to three and a half years with a 15,000-yuan fine in late August 2024, and transferred to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison shortly afterward.
While the two women’s cases were unrelated, both were convicted by the Muping District Court. Below are the details of their cases.
Ms. Yang was initially arrested on August 27, 2019, for talking to people about Falun Gong at a farmers’ market. She was held at the Yantai Detention Center for ten days and released on bail due to her health condition on September 7, one day after the Muping District Procuratorate approved her arrest.
The police submitted her case to the procuratorate on November 20, 2019. The prosecutor indicted her the next day and moved her case to the Muping District Court. The court waited more than a year before hearing her case on January 4, 2021, and sentencing her at the end of the hearing.
Three witnesses testified during her trial, alleging that Ms. Yang tried to given an elderly man a Falun Gong booklet at the farmers’ market, but he didn’t take it. Moments later, a police officer came over and searched her bag, finding three Falun Gong booklets. He arrested her, then searched her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books, two dozen booklets, an mp3 audio player, a media player, and many Falun Gong keepsakes.
The police accused her of being a “repeat offender” for refusing to give up practicing Falun Gong. She was detained three times in the past for her faith: in September 2012, July 2015, and September 2018. One of the detentions was for ten days and the other two were for 15 days.
Ms. Yang was allowed to go home after her trial. The local village secretary and security director suddenly showed up at her door in late July 2024 and forced her to go to a hospital for a physical examination. She was seized from home in mid-August 2024 and taken straight to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison.
Ms. Yin took up Falun Gong in 1998 but stopped practicing after the persecution began the following year. She resumed practicing Falun Gong in 2022 and was arrested at home on January 21, 2024.
The police promised to release Ms. Yin after fifteen days of administrative detention but did not keep their word. Her family hired a lawyer to represent her. The lawyer submitted a request to the police station and its supervising agency, the Muping District Police Department, to have her case dismissed.
The two police agencies never responded, and Ms. Yin’s two daughters and two friends (Wang Huawei and Wang Junheng, both Falun Gong practitioners, genders unknown) went to the police station on April 12, 2024 to seek her release. All four were arrested on the spot.
Wang Junheng and Ms. Yin’s older daughter, who practices Falun Gong, were released on one-year bail after 37 days of detention. Ms. Yin’s older daughter was fired from her job afterwards.
Ms. Yin’s younger sister, who does not practice Falun Gong, was detained for 15 days. Wang Hauwei was also given 15 days of detention but released hours after arrest due to health reasons.
Ms. Yin stood trial at the Muping District Court on June 13, 2024. Her family was not allowed to attend the hearing. Her nephew went to the courthouse but was immediately driven away by armed bailiffs. According to her lawyer, she was emaciated and her hair had completely turned gray. She insisted that she had broken no law by practicing Falun Gong.
Her family received a copy of her verdict in late August 2024, and noted that the prosecution evidence included accounts from two witnesses and the items confiscated from her home, including 51 Falun Gong books, 181 Falun Gong flyers, 96 Falun Gong brochures, 7 notebooks, 75 DVDs, a radio, and some laminated cards, wall decorations, and gourd carvings bearing Falun Gong messages.
The two witnesses were Ms. Yin’s son-in-law, Mr. Zhang Hanqing, and Qu Qiangli, the local village women’s federation chair.
Mr. Zhang has a mental illness and it’s unclear whether he had ever consented to becoming a witness against his mother-in-law in the first place. The verdict stated that he witnessed three things. His wife (Ms. Yin’s older daughter) took home some Falun Gong propaganda in the summer 2022, she took some Falun Gong materials from home and drove to her mother’s home in January 2024, and she again brought home Falun Gong propaganda in April 2024.
Qu said she and other officials had “worked” on Ms. Yin after the persecution began, but she refused to renounce Falun Gong. The village also received “complaints” from villagers about seeing Falun Gong materials at their doors and on utility poles and public walls. Qu alleged that Ms. Yin was the one spreading Falun Gong information.
No law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. Even if the witness accounts were accurate, they said nothing about whether she had broken any law. The judge nonetheless convicted Ms. Yin.
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