(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old woman in Fushun City, Liaoning Province was sentenced to five years in prison for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
A judge from Dongzhou District Court handed down the sentence at a hearing in a make-shift courtroom in Nangou Detention Center on December 13, 2019.
The president of the Dongzhou District Court had attempted to ask Fushun City Intermediate Court to reassign Ms. Jia’s case to another court, as Ms. Jia doesn’t live in the district, but was still ordered to hear and try her case by the authorities.
Ms. Jia Naizhi was arrested in April 2019 after the police suspected her of putting up a banner about Falun Gong.
During her December trial, prosecutors Wang Peng and Shen Peng accused her of “undermining law enforcement,” a standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong practitioners. They showed a photo of a banner that said “Falun Dafa is good, Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good.” They claimed that the banner was found near a school, which was the same banner carried by Ms. Jia during her arrest.
The prosecutors also played a clip of a surveillance video taken around 11 p.m. on March 29, 2019. The footage showed two people hanging up the banner on a motorcycle, but the clip was so blurry that one couldn't tell the gender or age of those two people. The police and the prosecutors both claimed that one of the two people was Ms. Jia.
When Ms. Jia’s lawyer argued that such evidence was insufficient, the judge stopped him.
The judge also cut off Ms. Jia when she testified in her own defense.
Prior to her latest prison term, Ms. Jia served two years in a forced labor camp and ten years in prison for speaking out for Falun Gong. The guards force fed her, kicked her in the stomach, subjected her to sleep deprivation, and hung her up by the wrists.
Related reports:
Local Court in Liaoning Province Court Declines to Hear Falun Gong Case
Once Incarcerated for 12 Years, Liaoning Woman Faces Trial for Practicing Falun Gong Again
After 12 Years Behind Bars for Her Faith, 70-year-old Woman Is Arrested Again
Ms. Jia Naizhi Sues Former Dictator Jiang Zemin
Ms. Jia Naizhi and Other Dafa Practitioners Persecuted in Shenyang Prison in Liaoning Province
