(Minghui.org) An attorney from Heilongjiang Province was sentenced in March 2013 to a year and a half with two years' probation for practicing Falun Gong.
Her sentence was handed down not two months after her release on medical parole following a stroke in a detention center.
Ms. Liu Zhongjie has never recovered from complications of the stroke. During the past year on probation, her health has deteriorated to the point that she cannot care for herself or ingest solid food. She also cannot speak.
Unable to bear the endless harassment from the authorities, Ms. Liu's husband divorced her shortly after her sentencing. Their young daughter is now on her own with her bedridden mother.
Ms. Liu's ordeal stems solely from her refusal to give up her belief in Falun Gong, a spiritual practice being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party.
Tried and Sentenced in 2013
Ms. Liu has endured ongoing harassment, threats, and illegal arrests since the onset of the persecution in 1999. After escaping arrest in 2003, she moved from place to place to avoid the persecution. She was most recently arrested on September 10, 2012, along with another practitioner, Ms. Zhao Min. Both were detained in Suihua Detention Center for more than four months. Ill-treatment in the detention center resulted in Ms. Liu suffering a stroke.
Ms. Liu was subsequently released, but her family were ordered to bring her to the Beilin District Court in March 3, 2013, to verify certain information. They were assured by the 610 Office that Ms. Liu would not be imprisoned.
The “verification” turned out to be a trial arranged to sentence Ms. Liu for "harboring" Ms. Zhao. Within 20 minutes Ms. Liu had been sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
Because Ms. Liu was in critical condition, her family asked that she be temporarily released on medical parole. Their request was agreed to, although with the additional conditions of probation for two years and her siblings' jobs as “guarantee” that she will not practice again. Her siblings were told that the consequences “would be serious” if Ms. Liu practiced Falun Gong again.
During this time, Ms. Liu's husband divorced her, unable to withstand the relentless harassment from the police and 610 Office agents.
Having been tormented physically and mentally for more than 10 years, Ms. Liu's health declined rapidly.
Numerous Arrests and Harassment over Four Years
Like many other attorneys in China, Ms. Liu used to accept bribes while representing her clients. After she began to practice Falun Gong, she returned past bribes and stopped accepting them. She followed Dafa's teachings of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance in everything she did and was grateful that, because of Falun Gong, she was an ethical professional with integrity.
She was determined to keep practicing Falun Gong even after the CCP launched its nationwide campaign to wipe out the peaceful cultivation practice.
Ms. Liu was arrested and harassed numerous times between 1999 and 2003 for refusing to renounce her belief. She first went to Beijing on October 29, 1999, to appeal for the right to practice after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) started the persecution of Falun Gong. She was imprisoned for two and a half months.
She was later imprisoned for eight months when the director of the legal firm that she worked for cooperated with the police to have her arrested on April 29, 2000, in an attempt to prevent her from going to Beijing again. After her release, her employer sent people to her house to watch her around the clock.
Because she wanted to help people understand the facts about the persecution, Ms. Liu distributed information about Falun Gong on January 17, 2001. Five days later, she and two other female practitioners were transferred to Qiqihar Forced Labor Camp and detained for one year.
Ms. Liu went on a hunger and water strike when the labor camp tried to extend her term in January 2002. She was force-fed but eventually released after she refused to eat or drink for 17 days.
Every time she was imprisoned, Ms. Liu was tortured, including being force-fed and injected with unknown substances, which caused her to faint many times and left her on the brink of death.
The day after her release on January 16, 2002, the director of the legal firm she worked for went with the police to Ms. Liu's house and announced that she was fired. The reason? She refused to give up practicing Falun Gong and was previously detained in a labor camp. She could no longer practice law.
Although Ms. Liu was released, the police were instructed by the 610 Office to harass her and her family and ransacked their home every now and then. Her husband was also threatened.
The police went to Ms. Liu's house again on April 13, 2003, wanting to find the identities of other Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Liu refused to cooperate, so four plainclothes police dragged her out of her house to the police station. She was detained in the detention center that night.
To protest the unreasonable detention, she went on hunger and water strike again. She was released five days later, after her husband paid the police 200 yuan.
Ms. Liu was arrested again in July 25, 2003, when she went with another practitioner to distribute Falun Gong informational materials. She managed to escape from the police station and then moved frequently for nearly 10 years before her latest arrest in 2012.
