(Minghui.org) Three women in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, stood trial on April 23, 2021, for their faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Li Mingfang, 47, and Ms. Zhang Fengyun, 65, were arrested on October 13, 2020, for talking to people about Falun Gong. The police ransacked their homes and confiscated their Falun Gong books. No list of items confiscated was provided.
At around 6 p.m. that same day, a third practitioner, Ms. Sima Jing, was also arrested and her home was ransacked. As Ms. Sima was with Ms. Zhang and Ms. Li before their arrests earlier that day, her family suspects that the police had tracked her by surveillance cameras.
All three were put in criminal detention on October 16 and held at the Shijiazhuang City No. 2 Detention Center.
The police submitted their cases to the Qiaoxi District Procuratorate on January 13, 2021. The prosecutor indicted them and moved their cases to the Qiaoxi District Court on February 19.
At their hearing on April 23, the women recounted how they benefitted from practicing Falun Gong. Their lawyers entered not guilty pleas on their behalf and demanded their acquittal.
According to the practitioners’ families who saw them at the hearing, all of them looked exhausted and emaciated after six months in detention. Ms. Sima lost over 30 pounds. Ms. Zhang has been struggling with dangerously high blood pressure and has passed out once. She doesn’t have an appetite. Her vision has also declined and she has difficulty walking. Her family applied several times to have her released on bail for medical care, but the authorities turned them down each time.
Ms. Li’s incarceration had upset her daughter greatly. With the onset of the persecution in 1999, Ms. Li’s former mother-in-law forced her husband to divorce her, fearing being implicated. So Ms. Li raised her daughter alone. Now she is a college student in Guangdong and is very worried about her mother.
Related report:
Three Hebei Residents Have Been Detained for a Month, One in Serious Condition
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Category: Accounts of Persecution
