(Minghui.org) Two residents of Taian City, Shandong Province, were sentenced to prison for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Zhu Guizhen and Ms. Ping Xiuying, both 64, were arrested on September 6, 2018, while distributing Falun Gong materials.

They appeared in Taishan District Court on January 22, 2019. Ms. Zhu was sentenced to four years in prison, and Ms. Ping received two years.

Both women are still held at Taian City Detention Center, where they have been detained since their arrests, at the time of writing.

Ms. Zhu and Ms. Ping both began to practice Falun Gong in 1998. They have been targeted several times for not renouncing their faith since the communist regime launched its persecution of Falun Gong in 1999.

Ms. Zhu was arrested in 2005 for distributing Falun Gong materials in her hometown in Qihe County, Shandong Province. The police slammed her head against a wall in front of her mother, who was in her 80s, leaving the elderly woman terrified.

The police ransacked her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books. She was kept in detention for more than 10 days and forced to do slave labor. Her family paid the guards more than 10,000 yuan in order to get her home.

Ms. Ping, on the other hand, was arrested in January 2000 in Beijing for appealing for the right to practice Falun Gong. She was detained at Taishan District Detention Center for 15 days and extorted 3,000 yuan.