(Minghui.org) Minghui.org previously reported on the 5.5-year prison sentence of a Zhengding County, Hebei Province, resident on March 31, 2025 for practicing Falun Gong. This report presents new information obtained by Minghui.org regarding Ms. Li Guoying’s arrest, indictment, trial, and sentencing.
Ms. Li was arrested on the evening of July 18, 2023, while shopping at a convenience store in Yongan Village on her way home from work. Several people surrounded her and asked if she practiced Falun Gong. When she said yes they grabbed her and called the police. She was taken to the nearby Chezhan Police Station.
She learned later that a villager found a Falun Gong flyer at his home and reported it to a village official. The official happened to be on patrol duty and spotted Ms. Li in the store. He knew she wasn’t from the village and decided that she may be the person who distributed the flyer.
In the early hours of July 19, 2023, officers from the Chezhan Police Station forced Ms. Li to take them to her home. They were shocked to see her door wide open and all the lights on. No family member was home, but captain Wang Xiaofeng of the Chengqu Criminal Police Division was searching the residence with more than ten deputies.
Ms. Li immediately realized that Wang was trying to take credit for her arrest and seek revenge against her for her past conflicts with his wife, a clothing store owner she once worked for. Wang’s wife instructed Ms. Li to do things that she felt went against Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She refused to follow orders and later quit her job at the clothing store. Wang and his wife since harbored resentment towards her.
Ms. Li condemned Wang for trespassing into a private residence and raiding her home without a search warrant. She also urged him to recuse himself from her case due to their past personal issues.
Wang flew into a rage and knocked Ms. Li down, causing her head hit the corner of a table. She passed out immediately.
When Ms. Li came to, she was in a room in the Zhengding County Domestic Security Division. Wang came over and ordered her to sign and fingerprint a list of items allegedly confiscated from her home. She was shocked to see items not belonging to her on the list, such as a broken printer. Because none of her family members were there during the raid, the list was not verified by her or her family as required by law.
It was clear that Wang listed a large amount of Falun Gong informational materials in an attempt to frame her. While it’s not illegal to produce or own such materials, Ms. Li did not have that many materials at her home. She refused to sign the list and condemned Wang again for raiding her home without a search warrant.
Wang became infuriated. He grabbed Ms. Li’s hand and pried open her fist to press her fingerprints on the list of confiscated items.
Wang next called in two officials from Yongan Village and instructed them to give testimony against Ms. Li. He also placed more than twelve copies of Falun Gong materials on a table, and photographed them as items “distributed by” Ms. Li on the day of her arrest. He then got a cellphone video showing Ms. Li being seized in the convenience store. All this “evidence” was submitted to the Shijiazhuang City Police Department for “authentication and verification.” Shijiazhuang City oversees Zhengding County.
Wang next submitted the case to the Zhengding County Procuratorate. He also extorted 1,000 yuan from Ms. Li’s daughter to cover her “medical treatment” for her fainting episode, even though he didn’t render Ms. Li any medical care after he knocked her unconscious.
Prosecutor Tian Ye was assigned to the case. She indicted Ms. Li and forwarded the case to the Zhengding County Court, without investigating the police-supplied evidence as required by law.
Ms. Li’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea during her first court appearance on March 6, 2024. He testified against the police for raiding his client’s home without a search warrant, beating her unconscious, and fabricating the list of confiscated items. He also testified against prosecutor Tian for indicting his client without any legal basis. Tian failed to provide any evidence in court to support her allegations against Ms. Li.
Ms. Li’s pregnant daughter, Ms. Song Danxi, represented her as a non-lawyer defender during the second court hearing on March 21, 2024.
Ms. Song recounted how Falun Gong restored her mother’s health, who developed complications after she gave birth in 1994. No medical treatment helped but Ms. Li’s symptoms disappeared soon after she took up Falun Gong in 1998.
Ms. Li also became a much kinder person, Ms. Song testified. Her parents were divorced for years, but her mother still cared for her paternal grandparents. After her paternal grandfather passed away, her mother continued to take good care of her paternal grandmother. Following Ms. Li’s latest arrest, both her paternal and maternal grandmother were devastated and often shed tears.
Ms. Song argued that her mother should not have been arrested in the first place for exercising her constitutional right to practice her spiritual faith that transformed her life.
The presiding judge adjourned the session. Ms. Song approached prosecutor Tian afterwards and urged her to drop the case. Tian said that the case was no longer with her. Ms. Song turned to the Zhengding County Police Department, which directed her to the presiding judge.
The judge said he submitted the case to the Shijiazhuang City Intermediate Court for review. By law, trial courts can independently rule in a case, but the intermediate courts are often involved in Falun Gong cases. They approve of lower courts’ prison sentences of Falun Gong practitioners and then reject practitioners’ appeals.
Ms. Song’s daughter talked to various other government agencies but none offered any help in seeking justice for her mother. Her 80-year-old maternal grandmother died while the case was still pending.
Ms. Song hoped to see her mother released in time to attend her child’s birth. But her baby was born and her mother was still in detention. She received a notice in March 2025 that her mother was sentenced to five and a half years and fined 30,000-yuan.
While Ms. Li is appealing her wrongful conviction, Ms. Song filed complaints against officer Wang, prosecutor Tian and other relevant perpetrators with the Shijiazhuang City Procuratorate, Zhengding County Political and Legal Affairs Committee, Zhengding County People’s Congress, Zhengding County Court and other agencies.