(Minghui.org) Minghui.org recently confirmed that Ms. Chang Zheng of Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province, has been sentenced to prison for practicing Falun Gong. Because most of her family lives in the U.S., they couldn’t verify the length of her sentence or where she is currently detained.

More than 200 police officers were mobilized to arrest 15 Falun Gong practitioners in Suzhou, including Ms. Chang, early in the morning on May 10, 2021. One practitioner was released after 15 days of detention, and 12 were released after six months of detention. Ms. Chang and another practitioner remained detained and were later sentenced.

Ms. Chang, 51, started to practice Falun Gong in 1997, after witnessing her mother’s (Ms. Chang Guifeng) heart condition, diabetes, and Meniere’s syndrome disappear after taking up Falun Gong.

After the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, she and her mother were repeatedly targeted for upholding their faith.

They were arrested in 2001 and taken to the Shangfangshan Brainwashing Center. Ms. Chang Guifeng was detained for 15 days and Ms. Chang Zheng for eight days.

Both women were arrested again in late January 2010 for talking to people about Falun Gong. Ms. Chang Zheng was held in the Suzhou City No.1 Detention Center for 19 days. Her mother was interrogated for three days at the police station. The experience terrified her, and she struggled with failing health after being released on bail. She passed away on June 19, 2010. She was only 59. Her death was very hard on her own mother, Ms. Jiao Suzhen, who was in her 80s. Ms. Jiao often stood by the window and shouted, “My daughter, please come back.” Ms. Jiao’s health also kept deteriorating and she died in August 2012.

On November 6, 2012, only three months after Ms. Jiao’s passing, Ms. Chang Zheng was arrested again and held in a brainwashing center for a month.

For filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former head of the Chinese communist regime who ordered the persecution, Ms. Chang was interrogated in the police station all day on July 9, 2015.

Ms. Chang’s next arrest was on March 30, 2016, when she and three other practitioners went to the nearby Zhangjiagang City to distribute informational materials about Falun Gong. During her detention, her uncle called from the U.S. and urged the detention center to release her. She was released on bail on April 29 and the Zhangjiagang City Procuratorate dismissed her case later on.