(Minghui.org) After a 65-year-old woman in Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province lost her appeal against a wrongful prison sentence, her husband filed a motion to reconsider her case, only to be given the runaround and harassed by police.
Ms. Jiang Guixiu was arrested at home on May 17, 2022, for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Her husband, who doesn’t practice Falun Gong, was also taken to the police station for interrogation. The police deceived her husband into revealing information about her Falun Gong practice, which was later used as prosecution evidence against her.
The Zhaoyuan City Court held a hearing of Ms. Jiang’s case on November 24, 2022. The presiding judge had planned a second hearing in mid-December, but later canceled it and sentenced Ms. Jiang to three years with a 10,000-yuan fine on December 21. She filed an appeal six days later, and the Yantai City Intermediate Court ruled on April 4, 2023 to uphold her original verdict, without holding a hearing.
In mid-June 2023, Ms. Jiang’s husband submitted a motion to reconsider her case to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate and some agencies in Shandong Province.
He received a text message from the Supreme People’s Procuratorate in late June, stating that, “We’ve received your motion. After reviewing it, we determined that it did not fall under our jurisdiction. We’ve forwarded your motion to the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate.”
In early July, Ms. Jiang’s husband received a text message from the Shandong Provincial Procuratorate, which said that the case was not under their jurisdiction and that they had forwarded it to the Yantai City Procuratorate, which oversees the Zhaoyuan City Procuratorate (the one that indicted Ms. Jiang following her arrest).
Around the same time, he also received a notice from the Shandong Province Judicial Bureau, which also stated that they were not in charge of handling his motion and that he should file his motion with the appropriate agencies.
In mid-July, a man from the Zhaoyuan City Court called Ms. Jiang’s husband, asking him not to file any motions to reconsider his wife’s case since her appeal had already been rejected. He also said no agency would accept the motion because she had refused to sign her original verdict and the appeals ruling. He refused to disclose where Ms. Jiang is being held.
Ms. Jiang’s husband vowed to keep fighting for justice for her. The caller then said he’d need to submit three copies of the motion with his fingerprints to the Yantai City Intermediate Court and the Shandong Province High Court. He did and is still waiting to hear back from the two courts at the time of writing.
During the entire process, Ms. Jiang’s husband also faced constant harassment from the Zhaoyuan City Domestic Security Office.
Following her arrest, everyone in Ms. Jiang’s extended family initially didn’t tell her 94-year-old father about it, given his advance age. But he grew suspicious as time went by and was eventually told about everything. The once healthy and sharp man was so devastated that he suddenly fell ill. He was hospitalized and is still in the intensive care unit at the time of writing.
Related Reports:
Shandong Woman’s Appeal of Wrongful Prison Sentence Rejected
Shandong Woman Sentenced to Three Years Over Fabricated Witness Account
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