(Minghui.org) A married couple in Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, were sentenced to prison on December 26, 2025, for their shared faith, Falun Gong.
Mr. Wu Shiyu, around 52, received four years. His wife, Ms. Zhang Jin’e, 44, was given three years. They were each fined 3,000 yuan.
Presiding judge Wei Xiaoming from the Haizhu District Court, his assist judges Cao Zhaoming and Li Xiaoyuan, as well as prosecutor Liao Xiaofeng from the Haizhu District Procuratorate, signed the verdict.
Prior to his latest sentencing, Mr. Wu was previously sentenced to 10 years for practicing Falun Gong and served about seven years in prison.
Arrests
Mr. Wu, born in January 1974, purchased a printer in early August 2024 and printed 40 copies of Minghui Weekly (a magazine which has news and reports about Falun Gong) at the end of that month. He also printed Falun Gong messages on 20 banknotes.
From September 11 to 13, 2024, Mr. Wu’s wife Ms. Zhang, born in December 1981, placed 24 copies of Minghui Weekly that her husband produced in the baskets of the electric bicycles parked at the entrance of the Panyu Plaza Subway Station in the Panyu District. On the afternoon of September 13, 2024, security guards Wang, Xiong, and Zhou, reported her to the police.
Agents from the Panyu District Domestic Security Office and the Shiqiao Police Station soon seized Ms. Zhang at the Chentougang Subway Station. They brought her back to her rental apartment that night and seized Mr. Wu too.
The police confiscated the couple’s eight Falun Gong books, 10 copies of Minghui Weekly, 41 pieces of banknotes (including the 20 pieces with printed messages about Falun Gong), a desktop computer, laptop, printer, and cell phones.
The couple was given criminal detention on September 14 and issued formal arrest warrants on October 21, 2024.
Police Fabricate Evidence
The police accused the couple of “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement,” a standard pretext used by the communist regime to frame Falun Gong practitioners.
No law in China criminalizes Falun Gong or labels it as a cult. The police however used the items confiscated from the couple’s home as evidence against them. To strengthen the case, the police exaggerated the amount of the confiscated materials. They found 10 copies of Minghui Weekly in the couple’s home but recorded 30 in the confiscation notice. The bookmarks inserted in some of the materials were also counted as “cult promotion materials.” The eight Falun Gong books the couple used for their own self-cultivation were given the same label.
The police also interrogated the couple’s young child and pressured her to say her parents taught her to be good by following Falun Gong’s principles. The family’s nanny was also interrogated and coerced into revealing how the couple talked to her about Falun Gong. The couple’s conversations with their child and nanny were then considered cult promotion materials.
Mr. Wu was interrogated for hours throughout the night. He became exhausted and revealed the passwords to his tablet and cell phone. After he regained clarity, he refused to disclose his laptop passcode despite the police threats.
Even though Mr. Wu did not distribute Minghui Weekly, he was listed as a co-distributor with his wife. Ms. Zhang, who had no computer knowledge and was not involved in producing the materials, was listed as a co-producer of the materials.
The police raided the couple’s home again on September 23, 2024, when no one was around. They also did not have a third-party witness present as required by law.
When the couple’s lawyer later reviewed the case file, he found that the photos of the second raid showed pictures of the items that had already been confiscated during the first raid.
Indictment and Trial
The Panyu District Domestic Security Office submitted the case to the Panyu District Procuratorate on December 16, 2024. The case was transferred to the Haizhu District Procuratorate on January 15, 2025, and was returned to the police the next month for additional information. The Panyu police resubmitted the case in March 2025. The couple’s lawyer noted that the amount of confiscated Minghui Weekly copies, which had previously been changed from 20 to 30, was further revised to 50 by hand.
Prosecutor Liao indicted the couple and forwarded the case to the Haizhu District Court on April 10, 2025.
The couple stood trial on June 19, 2025. Two people who claimed to be higher-up officials were seen in the courthouse.
When the hearing began around 3 p.m., the couple’s lawyer requested that the police-supplied evidence be excluded from the trial due to the reasons mentioned in the previous section.
Presiding judge Wei said he needed to watch the police videos and called for a recess. He resumed the hearing at 5:30 p.m., despite the lawyer’s concern that it was too late.
The lawyer reiterated the fact that it was not illegal to practice Falun Gong in China and emphasized that his clients broke no law in producing or distributing Falun Gong materials.
When it was time to give a final statement, judge Wei stopped the couple when they just said a few words. He pounded his gavel to end the hearing.
Wei sentenced the couple on December 26, 2025. Prior to that, he sentenced at least three other local practitioners since September 2024, including Mr. Huang Ruhong (4 years), Ms. Zhao Ying (3.5 years), and Ms. Chen Jinqing (3.5 years).
Past Persecution
Both Mr. Wu and Ms. Zhang have been repeatedly targeted for their faith over the past two plus decades.
Mr. Wu was arrested in Teng County, Guangxi Province (about 200 miles away from Guangzhou City) on January 4, 2001, and detained for 15 days. He was released on bail and sentenced to ten years on November 29 that year by the Guangzhou City Intermediate Court. He was then admitted to the Sihui Prison in Guangdong Province.
Mr. Wu was released ahead of time in August 2008. He did various jobs after he returned home. At one point he worked as a bank security guard but the police kept harassing him. His manager feared being implicated and fired him.
Ms. Wang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong shortly after the persecution began in July 1999. She was arrested, taken back to Guangdong, and detained for 15 days.
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