(Minghui.org) The prosecution of a 56-year-old Gaozhou City, Guangdong Province resident for practicing Falun Gong was recently put on hold by the local court, which cited an unforeseen reason.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Wu Youqing, 56, was arrested when she went out on the evening of September 26, 2022. More than ten officers, including two armed officers with riot shields, showed up at her home after midnight. Ms. Wu’s sister, who was living with her, was terrified and refused to open the door. The police damaged the door with a metal object and broke in. They ransacked her home until 3 a.m. and confiscated a large amount of Falun Gong materials.
Ms. Wu was put on criminal detention on September 28 and taken to the Xinyi Detention Center. Because of her doing the Falun Gong exercises on October 4, the guards shackled her. The shackles were still on when her lawyer visited her on October 11.
A detention center guard called Ms. Wu’s family on October 23 and said she had been on a hunger strike for five days. The guard urged them to apply for Ms. Wu’s release on medical bail. With the lawyer’s help, her family prepared a medical bail application. But when they went to the Gaozhou City Police Department to submit it, the police refused to accept the document.
Although the police accepted the bail application the next day, they rejected it a day later, claiming that Ms. Wu’s condition had stabilized so she was no longer qualified for medical release.
The lawyer went to the detention center on October 25 to visit Ms. Wu, but was turned away by a guard on duty, who claimed that the lawyer had passed a high-risk COVID-19 region on his way there. The lawyer argued that he would only be meeting Ms. Wu through a video call and had no way of transmitting the virus (even if he had been infected), but the guard still forced him to undergo two days of quarantine before allowing him to talk to Ms. Wu on October 28.
According to the lawyer, Ms. Wu was very weak and couldn’t talk clearly after eleven days of being on a hunger strike. She also vomited several times during the meeting.
That same day, the police deceived Ms. Wu’s family into signing a document stating that her medical condition didn’t qualify her for release on medical bail.
Ms. Wu’s family called the detention center on November 10 and was told that the guards had taken her to the hospital for intravenous feeding. Her condition was stable, but she still refused to eat.
The police submitted Ms. Wu’s case to the Gaozhou City Procuratorate on November 18, which then transferred it to the Maonan District Procuratorate on November 22. When her lawyer went to the Maonan District Procuratorate on November 28 to review her case document, he was told that the prosecutor had already indicted her on November 25 and moved her case to the Maonan District Court.
Meanwhile, Ms. Wu’s family learned on November 21 that she had been transferred to the Maoming City No. 1 Detention Center. But after being on a hunger strike for one month, she was having problems with her digestive system and vomited when she ate.
The police called Ms. Wu’s family on November 24 and said she was in serious condition and had been taken to the hospital for emergency treatment. They refused to let the family visit her, but ordered them to pay for two albumin injections (about 1,000 yuan), which is usually used to treat shock following serious injury and to increase blood plasma.
The family refused to pay. They said that Ms. Wu was very healthy when she was arrested and they indicated that they will hold the police accountable for her condition.
Ms. Wu’s lawyer went to the detention center on November 29 to drop off the Power of Attorney for her to sign, which was ordered by the judge before allowing the lawyer to review her case document. On his way back, he received a call from the Maoming City Disease Prevention Center and was told that the pooled sample of his COVID test was positive. They ordered him to stay in a hotel for a five-day quarantine.
After the quarantine ended on December 4, the lawyer went to the detention center again to visit Ms. Wu, only to be told she had been taken to the hospital again.
The lawyer then went to the hospital. An officer surnamed Li took his Power of Attorney inside to have Ms. Wu sign it. But the officer refused to allow the lawyer to visit Ms. Wu, with the excuse that the hospital didn’t have electronic device for a video meeting. The police also refused to provide an update about Ms. Wu’s condition.
In January 2023, Ms. Wu’s family hired another lawyer, who filed complaints on the family’s behalf against the police and the prosecutor for wrongfully handling her case. The lawyer had a video chat with Ms. Wu at the detention center on January 5, 2023 and noted that she had basically recovered.
On January 30, 2023, presiding judge Tan Wei of the Maonan District Court ruled to put Ms. Wu’s case on hold due to an unforeseen situation. It’s not clear whether Ms. Wu is still detained at the time of writing.
Since the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Wu has been repeatedly targeted for her faith. She served three years of forced labor and four years in prison. Even after she returned home after surviving years of abuse in detention, the local authorities still constantly harassed her and attempted to force her to renounce her faith.
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