(Minghui.org) Ms. Du Xinqin, 74, from Ankang City, Shaanxi Province, was sentenced to three years for practicing Falun Gong, Minghui.org learned recently.

Ms. Du, who retired from the Ankang City Highway Bureau, was arrested in late December 2023, by officers from the Hanbin District Domestic Security Office. They threatened her husband, in his 70s and who recently underwent eye surgery, not to hire a lawyer for her or tell others about her arrest. He caved in under the pressure. Minghui.org only managed to confirm Ms. Du’s prison sentence recently, but other details regarding her indictment and trial remain unknown.

This is not the first time that Ms. Du has been targeted for her faith since the Chinese Communist Party launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong in July 1999. In the early years of the persecution, she was arrested and put in a brainwashing center, where she was abused so badly she suffered severe hearing loss.

After Ms. Du was released, she was under long-term surveillance and was frequently harassed at home. In May 2021, the local police and street committee came and ordered her to sign a statement to renounce her faith.

Just past 8 p.m. on February 27, 2022, the Hanbin District Domestic Security Office called Ms. Du’s husband to say that they would come the next day. Officer Zhao Silin and driver Wang Lei came at 8:30 a.m. the following morning. They did not wear masks as required (it was still during the COVID-19 pandemic). They video-recorded Ms. Du and demanded to know where she had recently been. She refused to answer their questions.

The police and street committee harassed Ms. Du between April and May 2023 by claiming they were conducting welfare checks. They eventually arrested her in late December that year.