(Minghui.org) Three women from Weifang City, Shandong Province are scheduled to appear in court on December 3, 2018 for raising awareness of the persecution of their faith, Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body discipline persecuted by the communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhang Wenying and Ms. Sun Xiaoying were arrested at around 9 a.m. on April 19, 2018 after being followed by police, who saw them talking to people about Falun Gong at an intersection. The third woman, Ms. Tang Lihua, was arrested around the same time at a different location, also for talking to people about Falun Gong.

The three women are from the same residential neighborhood. The police ransacked their residences following the arrests, confiscated their Falun Gong related materials, computers and other personal belongings, and then took them to the basement at Qingchi Police Station for interrogation.

Ms. Zhang, 68, was interrogated until 7 p.m. The police forced her to sign on the interrogation record and then took her to the hospital for a physical checkup. She was found to be suffering from severe heart problems. The police released her on bail at around 10 p.m., but asked her daughter to sign a guarantee statement promising to keep Ms. Zhang from going out to talk to people about Falun Gong or distribute materials about it, otherwise the daughter would face prison time herself.

Ms. Zhang was hospitalized on the next day, and stayed there for 11 days for her heart problem. The police demanded that her daughter send copies of her inpatient admission documents and diagnostic report to them.

Ms. Sun, 43, was with her 3-year-old daughter when the police arrested her. Her husband picked up their daughter around noon, and the police interrogated her for the next 24 hours. The police also took her blood sample before taking her to Weifang City Detention Center on April 20. She was released on bail on May 24.

Ms. Tang, 65, was interrogated on April 19 until 7 p.m. She has been kept at Weifang City Detention Center for over seven months. Her family visited the detention center twice, but were denied the right to meet with her both times.

The police submitted the three practitioners' cases to Kuiwen District Procuratorate on July 24, which later forwarded it to the Kuiwen District Court.