(Minghui.org) Three Falun Gong practitioners in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province have had their appeals against wrongful sentences for their faith rejected.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Chen Heng was arrested on July 9, 2021. His arrest was approved in the same month. He was held at the Lianjiang County Detention Center. The Changle Procuratorate indicted him on November 15, 2021. He received the four-year verdict by the Changle Court on March 30, 2022. He has been taken to the Fuqing Prison on July 18, 2022, after the Fuzhou City Intermediate Court rejected his appeal.
Ms. Lin Guichen, a 62-year-old retried employee of the Fujian Province Farming Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences, was arrested on July 12, 2020, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong.
Ms. Lin and the third convicted practitioner, Ms. Li Weiping, who was arrested on July 14, 2020 for distributing Falun Gong materials, jointly appeared in Mawei District Court on June 14, 2022. Their lawyers entered a plea of not guilty for them. The lawyers both argued that although the prosecutor charged their clients with “undermining law enforcement,” he failed to show how the law enforcement was obstructed or what damage the practitioners caused to society. They demanded acquittal of their clients.
Ms. Li testified in her own defense. She said that no law ever criminalizes Falun Gong in China. Outside of China, Falun Gong is freely practiced and celebrated around the world. She maintained that she didn’t violate any law in practicing Falun Gong.
Regardless, the judge later sentenced Ms. Lin and Ms. Li to four years each. They also appealed with the Fuzhou City Intermediate Court, which had ruled to uphold their original verdicts.
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