90 Falun Gong Practitioners Sentenced for Faith in April 2021

Based on an original report from Minghui.org

In April 2021, ninety Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced for their faith. The practitioners reported sentenced in April 2021 came from 40 cities in 19 provinces and centrally-controlled municipalities. 

Demographics

The provinces of Liaoning (14), Heilongjiang (10) and Sichuan (10) reported double-digit cases while the remaining regions had single digit cases.

The practitioners’ terms ranged from seven months to nine years, with an average of 3.24 years. Two practitioners’ terms were unknown.

The professions of the sentenced practitioners included doctors, education experts, journalists, engineers, and teachers. 

The ages of the 90 sentenced practitioners ranged between 33 and 81 years old, with 20 being 65 or older.

Forty-one of the practitioners were also fined by courts, with amounts ranging from 1,000 to 30,000 yuan, for a total of 345,000 yuan, averaging 8,414 yuan per person.

Below are snapshots of cases reported in April 2021. 

After Spending Ten Years in Prison, Beijing Man Sentenced Again to Nine Years

Having spent ten hellish years in prison, a Beijing resident and former scientist has been sentenced to another nine years for his faith in Falun Gong.

Mr. Shi Shaoping, 50, holds a master’s degree from the Photochemical Institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, was seized from his home in Beijing on November 18, 2019. The police threatened his family and refused to provide updates about his case.

Not until April 2021 did his younger brother receive the notice that Shi had been sentenced to nine years. He will serve time at the Beijing No. 2 Prison, which has been mostly used to detain death row prisoners or criminals sentenced to life imprisonment, as well as Falun Gong practitioners.

Prior to his latest sentencing, Shi was arrested in 2001 and sentenced to ten years. The guards at Qianjin Prison in Beijing selected violent prisoners to monitor and torture him, to force him to give up Falun Gong. As a result of the torture he suffered, the muscles in his legs atrophied and his health took a heavy toll.

Previously Jailed for Five Years, Engineer Sentenced Again

On September 22 and 23, 2020, Ms. Liu Bobin was arrested alongside more than 30 Falun Gong practitioners in Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province. After spending over six months in custody, Liu was sentenced to six years with a 20,000-yuan fine by the Daoli District Court on April 8, 2021.

Liu, 57, was a senior engineer at the state-owned Harbin Measuring Tool Factory. She had many health problems and was diagnosed with congenital infertility. Then, in April 1995, by her classmate and shortly after she began the practice, her ailments disappeared. She became pregnant in May 1999, four years after she took up Falun Gong.

After the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, Liu was suddenly disassociated by the people she knew, even though they had witnessed how she had benefited from the practice. Even her family tried to convince her to quit Falun Gong. Despite the pressure, she chose to uphold the truth and her faith. 

On April 10, 2000, a month after her son was born, Liu was fired from her job. Liu was then monitored and harassed frequently. She was arrested again on October 25, 2009 and later sentenced to five years.

When she was released from prison in January 2014, her husband could not bear the pressure of the persecution and divorced her. Her son also left and went abroad with her ex-husband. She was prohibited from leaving the country to see her son. Because she refused to cooperate with the police in a harassment campaign in 2017, the police also refused to issue an essential document her son needed to apply for permanent residency in the overseas country.

Retired Doctor Sentenced to Nine Years for Mailing Letter About Her Faith

Ms. Wang Jianmin, a 65-year-old retired doctor in Laiyang City, Shandong Province, was sentenced to a nine-year prison term on March 26, 2021, for her faith in Falun Gong.

Wang was arrested on September 4, 2020, while depositing letters with information about the persecution into a mailbox at the Laiyang Unicom Company. The police had followed her that morning with the intent to arrest her.

The police ransacked her home in the evening when no one was around. Her three computers, seven printers, and a large number of banknotes printed with information about Falun Gong (Due to strict information censorship in China, many Falun Gong practitioners use creative ways to raise awareness about the persecution).

After the police finished loading the police car with the confiscated items, they turned off the electricity to Wang’s home and left, leaving the door opened. Only when a relative went to visit her later that evening, did they learn of her arrest.

Taken Home on a Stretcher, Beijing Woman Sentenced to Prison Days Later

Ten days after Ms. Wang Chaoying was brought home from detention by ambulance, a local court sent people to her home to announce that the 67-year-old Beijing resident had been sentenced to 2.5 years and fined 5,000 yuan.

When Wang’s family questioned the agents as to why they would still sentence her when she had become emaciated and suffered terrible health after six months of detention, they had no answer.

Wang was arrested at a tourist attraction on October 6, 2020, after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. She held a hunger strike to protest the persecution at the Changping Detention Center and was hospitalized three times. Despite her condition, Wang was still made to stand trial at the detention center in early April 2021. 

With her deteriorating condition, the guards took her back to the police hospital. The doctor refused to treat her and urged judge Zhang Wenbin to release her. Only then did the judge agree to have her released on April 20. According to her family, she was about 120 lbs when she was arrested. Now she weighs less than 80 lbs. It is not clear whether the judge would allow her to serve time at home or order the police to take her back into custody.

Original Article: https://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2021/5/24/193307.html