(Minghui.org) An 86-year-old Shenyang City, Liaoning Province resident is facing trial for distributing materials about Falun Gong. The presiding judge attempted to force her to renounce her faith by threatening to sentence her.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liang Shuzhi was arrested at home on June 8, 2021. Her computer, printer, and Falun Gong books were confiscated. After strong demands from her family, she was released later that day.
The police claimed that a surveillance camera recorded Ms. Liang placing Falun Gong materials on cars near the Heping Police Station in March 2021. By monitoring her daily activities, they also discovered that other Falun Gong practitioners were printing materials at her home. They claimed that this was a serious crime and that they intended to send her to prison.
The Heping District Domestic Security Office submitted Ms. Liang’s case to the Liaozhong District Procuratorate. A police officer called her family on May 9, 2022, threatening them that she would stand trial at Liaozhong District Court soon.
Ms. Liang’s family later learned that the prosecutor returned the case to the police on June 6, 2022, due to insufficient evidence. The police submitted her case again on June 17.
A group of officers and a prosecutor came to Ms. Liang’s home on August 2, 2022, attempting to force her to sign her indictment. She refused to comply.
Lin Xiaojiao, the presiding judge of Liaozhong District Court, called Ms. Liang’s family on January 31, 2023, threatening to take Ms. Liang into custody after the Lantern Festival on February 5 if she didn’t renounce Falun Gong. It’s not clear how Ms. Liang’s family responded to Lin.
Ms. Liang’s mother passed away when she was little. At the age of 7, she was sold by her father as a child bride. Although her sister later took her back, she didn’t have a stable life and moved from place to place. She began to attend school at age 11, only to drop out three years later. With the help of her family, she studied for a few more years and began to work.
Ms. Liang got married in her 20s, but divorced when she was 30. Years later, she began to suffer frequent headaches and a runny nose. She thought it was rhinitis, but her doctor diagnosed her with nasopharyngeal carcinoma (cancer in the nasopharynx, which is behind the nose and above the back of the throat). Shortly after the diagnosis, she began to have blood in her urine and she suspected that cancer had metastasized. Due to her health condition, she retired early.
In 1996, Ms. Liang began to practice Falun Gong and all her health conditions disappeared. As she had married again by then, she was full of hope to live a happy life from then on.
Her hope was dashed a few years later, however. After the communist regime ordered the persecution in July 1999, her husband, a member of the Chinese Communist Party, became scared and didn’t allow her to practice Falun Gong anymore. But only one month after she stopped practicing, her vision blurred and the condition kept worsening despite hospital treatment. With no other choice, she began practicing Falun Gong again.
Ms. Liang’s own experience motivated her to clarify the facts about Falun Gong so that more people could benefit from it. Because of putting up Falun Gong posters, she was arrested in 2002 and sentenced to three years at the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison.
Now at the age of 86, she is facing prison time again for speaking up about her faith.
85-year-old Woman Faces Prison Time for Distributing Materials about Her Faith