(Minghui.org) A woman in Jilin City, Jilin Province, was secretly sentenced to seven years in Jilin Province Women’s Prison for practicing Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Cao Yanfen, in her 50s, moved from her hometown in Yushu City to Jilin City around 2016 to avoid long-term police harassment, only to be targeted three years later in a group arrest.
At around 5 a.m. on July 19, 2019, when Ms. Cao’s husband, Mr. Chai Guozhong, left their apartment building to go to work, two plainclothes officers who had been on the lookout at the building entrance stopped him. As they were questioning him, a dozen plainclothes officers came over and pushed him up to his third-floor apartment unit.
The police ransacked his residence and confiscated his and his wife's computer, printer, cellphones, Falun Gong books, and 6,500 yuan in paper bills with information about Falun Gong printed on them to raise awareness about the persecution given the strict information censorship in China.
The police arrested the couple and also took their son, who has a mental disability, to the Huanxiling Police Station. Another 22 practitioners were arrested that same day.
Two officers handcuffed Mr. Chai behind his back and dragged him around on the ground. They also refused to let him use the restroom for 17 hours. Police director Jiang said to Mr. Chai, “I ordered them to do that. If you don’t confess, this is what you get.”
By 10 p.m., the police were still unable to force Mr. Chai to answer their questions or provide information about other practitioners, so they let him go home with his son.
Ms. Cao, however, was kept in custody and transferred to the Jilin City Detention Center. She was later secretly sentenced to seven years and imprisoned.
Related report:
Jilin City, Jilin Province: At Least 24 Falun Gong Practitioners and Two Spouses Arrested in One Day
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