(Minghui.org) After two different procuratorates returned Ms. Wu Fangming’s case twice due to insufficient evidence, the 57-year-old Huaihua City, Hunan Province, woman was sentenced to prison following her arrest on September 29, 2019, while giving Ms. Tang Xiuying a ride home on her electric motorcycle.
Both Ms. Wu and Ms. Tang, in her 80s, practice Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
While it’s not clear if Ms. Tang was arrested, over ten officers arrested Ms. Wu, ransacked her home, and videotaped the process. Ms. Tang’s two laptops, two printers, copy paper, flash-drive, 1,800 yuan in cash, and her electric motorcycle were confiscated.
When Ms. Wu’s son went to the Tuanjie Police Station to demand her release the next day, the police said they had taken her to the local detention center the afternoon before. They promised to release Ms. Wu in 37 days, only to keep her in custody for over a year and then plan to prosecute her.
The Hegang Police Department submitted Ms. Wu’s case to the Hecheng District Procuratorate on January 2, 2020. After the prosecutor returned the case on February 17, citing insufficient evidence, the police submitted her case again on March 17, but this time to the Zhijiang County Procuratorate.
The Zhijiang County Procuratorate also returned the case to the police on April 29, citing insufficient evidence. But the prosecutor indicted Ms. Wu and moved her case to the Zhijiang County Court after the police submitted her case for the second time.
Ms. Wu’s first hearing wrapped up in less than an hour on August 25, 2020. During her second hearing on December 11, two lawyers entered a not guilty plea for her. The judge only allowed her son to attend the hearing, keeping all her other family members outside the courtroom, citing the pandemic as an excuse.
Ms. Wu’s family was very concerned about her health, as she had fainted in the detention center twice after being tortured. Plainclothes officers harassed and videotaped members of her family waiting out the courthouse.
Ms. Wu was sentenced to one year and four months on January 11, 2021. She was also fined 2,000 yuan. She was released from the Huaihua City Detention Center on January 28.
Ms. Wu suffered from a severe congenital heart ailment. Her sister had to carry her on her back to school every day. She saw many doctors and tried different medications, but none had much effect on her. To improve her health, she began to practice Falun Gong and her condition disappeared. Living by Falun Gong’s tenets of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, she became more considerate and also changed her bad temper, which she’d developed as a result of physical suffering caused by her heart ailment.
For refusing to give up her faith after the communist regime began to persecute Falun Gong, she was repeatedly harassed and arrested over the past 22 years. During one detention in a brainwashing center, her heart disease relapsed due to the torture and she was only released after she suffered bleeding in her heart.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Song Yinping (宋银萍), prosecutor, Zhijiang County ProcuratorateYang Zongjia (杨宗佳), assistant to the prosecutor: +86-745-6827605Yang Haijun (杨海军), presiding judge, Zhijiang County CourtTao Qiying (陶启英), judge: +86-17374581297, +86-745-6821401Chen Jun (陈军), judgeYang Tian (杨甜), court clerk
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Category: Accounts of Persecution
