(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioner Liu Qingyu, from Dashiqiao City, Liaoning Province, was placed on trial in the Haicheng City Court on December 14, 2016 and sentenced to one year in prison. He has since lodged an appeal. Mr. Liu has been illegally detained for over seven months at Nantai Detention Center in Haicheng City.

Mr. Liu started practicing Falun Gong in July 1998. He had a number of illnesses before taking up the practice, including a stubborn stomach disease which often caused him unbearable pain.

After he took up the practice of Falun Gong, he conducted himself according to the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and regained good health. He also got rid some unhealthy habits such as smoking, drinking and long hours playing Mahjong.

Simply because he practices Falun Gong and has upheld his belief in Falun Gong’s principles, Mr. Liu has endured persecution and has been sent to labor camps three times.

On June 28, 2016, while he was in Haicheng on a business trip, police from the Domestic Security Division chased Mr. Liu down, unlawfully body-searched him and arrested him. They also took away the 1,830 yuan he had on him.

Mr. Liu was taken to the Haicheng Detention Center and has been locked up there since. The police beat him, causing severe bruising around his eyes. The injuries took over two months to heal.

On July 2, 2016, officers from the Domestic Division interrogated him at the detention center and tried to force him to sign a fabricated list of confiscated articles. Mr. Liu refused.

His family hired a defense lawyer for him, who submitted a written request for his immediate release.

His lawyer tried to talk with the police many times. They refused to tell him the case officer’s name and kept asking him what Mr. Liu’s family intended to do.

The Haicheng City Procuratorate returned the case to the Haicheng Domestic Division on October 26, 2016. However, the police continued to fabricate evidence, producing false charges against Mr. Liu.

Newly fabricated materials were sent to the Haicheng City Court through the procuratorate on November 21.

The court unlawfully put Mr. Liu on trial on December 14. Prosecutor Li Junhui stated as soon as he entered the court that he would have Mr. Liu sentenced to four or five years in prison.

Only four of Mr. Liu’s immediate family members were allowed in the court room during the trial.

During the trial, the prosecutor accused Mr. Liu of possessing bank notes with Falun Gong messages on them and also asserted that Mr. Liu was a “repeat offender,” as he had been persecuted in a forced labor camp in 2008. He recommended a prison sentence.

Mr. Liu’s lawyer rebutted the false accusations and made an eloquent case for his acquittal.

Still, the Haicheng City Court sentenced Mr. Liu to one year in prison for “using an evil cult to undermine law enforcement”, a standard accusation used by the CCP legal system in the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

Mr. Liu Qingyu has since filed an appeal against the unlawful sentence.