(Minghui.org) Two Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province residents were taken to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison on April 20, 2023, to serve time for their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Cheng Qiaoyun, around 63, and Ms. Du Chunxiang, around 65, were arrested on July 12, 2022, during a police sweep of at least 135 Falun Gong practitioners. Another 89 practitioners were harassed and 156 had their homes ransacked.
According to a police officer, the authorities had begun following and video-recording the practitioners as early as nine months before the operation. The date of the mass arrest was not announced until a week prior. The officers did not give out their names, precincts, or their contact information while making the arrests, claiming that such information was a state secret.
Ms. Cheng was later sentenced to eight years and Ms. Du was given four years. Details about their sentencing aren’t clear.
Ms. Du’s family later hired a lawyer for her. Through the lawyer’s appeal, the judge reduced her term to three years and four months. After she was taken to prison, she was first held at the training ward for two weeks and then transferred to the 8th ward. When her family visited her in early May, she was very weak and had contracted tuberculosis. But the prison refused to release her on medical parole.
Ms. Cheng’s family never received any formal notice of her verdict. Not long ago, her family received an express mail which contained four sheets of paper indicating her sentence. It was not an official verdict though. The document only bore a signature reading “Officer Hong” and a seal of the court, without the names of the prosecutor, the judge or any other officers involved in her case. Her family also received a text message, asking them to pay for Ms. Cheng’s 50,000-yuan court fine, which they refused.
Related report:
Arrested in a Police Sweep, Two Heilongjiang Women Sentenced to Prison for Practicing Falun Gong
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