(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners Ms. Wen Pinling and Mr. Gu Sitong were each secretly sentenced to a six-year prison term by the Meizhou Court in Guangdong Province, for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong.
Ms. Wen was taken to Guangdong Women's Prison, and Mr. Gu was taken to Sihui Prison, on May 17, 2017.
Secretly Sentenced and Transferred to Prison
The Meizhou Court handed down the sentences for the practitioners without notifying their families of a trial or court date, or about the verdicts. The Procuratorate and judicial personnel, as well as police, would not reveal any information about the two practitioners.
Ms. Wen was being detained at the Wuhua Detention Center. Being unaware of her transfer to prison, her husband brought things to her in early June. The detention center staff would not accept the items, only saying that she was no longer there. Her husband went to the Wuhua City Judicial Bureau and asked for her whereabouts, and was told that they did not know.
Their family members called upon many of their friends to help locate the two practitioners. They finally discovered that Ms. Wen and Mr. Gu had been sentenced to prison terms.
Arrested and Detained
The police ransacked Mr. Gu's home in August 2016, claiming that someone had reported him. Not finding anything incriminating, they arrested him and took him to the Dapu Detention Center for three days and nights. Under pressure from the police, Mr. Gu signed a statement saying that he took Ms. Wen on his motorcycle to put up posters that read, “Falun Dafa is good.”
During Ms. Wen’s trial on December 23, 2016, Mr. Gu testified that he was forced to sign the untrue statement. He was arrested right after the trial and taken to the Wuhua Detention Center, where he was held until his secret sentencing, and then transferred to a prison.
Ms. Wen was arrested at home by more than a dozen police officers from Wuhua County Domestic Security Division and held in the Wuhua Detention Center until she was transferred to a prison.
Waves of Arrests
The Wuhua City 610 Office ordered the police department and all police stations to go into towns and villages and search for Falun Gong practitioners.
Former (non-Falun Gong) detainees released from the Wuhua Detention Center revealed that the detention center was filled with Falun Gong practitioners from villages south of Wuhua City.
The governmental agents acted at night to avoid being seen. To block any news about the arrests and detentions, they cut off all Internet communications in Wuhua. They also had web police listen in and disrupt such web communications.
Related article:610 Office Head Deprives Ms. Wen of Her Legal Right to Defend Herself
