(Minghui.org) A Heze City, Shandong Province, woman was sentenced to five years and fined 20,000 yuan over fabricated evidence against her faith in 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. Wang Cuiying, a 58-year-old retired government employee, was arrested on March 7, 2019, while distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. Another practitioner, Ms. Zhao Aizhen, was arrested on the same evening. Although they didn’t know each other, the police combined their cases and submitted it together to the procuratorate.
The two practitioners were tried by Juancheng County Court on January 15, 2020. The prosecutor listed more than 1,200 pieces of evidence against them, but only exhibited a few blurry photos of the “evidence,” without showing the actual items.
Prior to the hearing, the police had also summoned the practitioners’ families for interrogation and deceived them into signing the interrogation records without allowing them to see what was written there. The family members found out later that the interrogation records were not what they said to the police, but instead fabricated content incriminating their loved ones.
The court scheduled a second hearing on February 5, 2021. But one day before the hearing, the court informed the practitioners’ families that the hearing was canceled due to a malfunction of the video conference equipment.
The practitioners’ families kept calling back to inquire about the new hearing date. Only two days before the second hearing on March 12, did the presiding judge, Fan Hong, tell them about it. When asked why he did not inform the families earlier, Fan responded that they didn’t have the responsibility to do so.
The prosecutor presented over 1,000 pieces of evidence, including Falun Gong books and informational materials, during the March 12 hearing. He claimed that the materials were produced by Ms. Zhao at Ms. Wang’s demand. He said he has Ms. Zhao’s confession to support the charge, but Ms. Zhao denied ever making the confession.
She said she has presbyopia and it was very dark in the interrogation room. The police didn’t let her read the interrogation record carefully before forcing her to sign it.
Ms. Wang emphasized that she didn’t know Ms. Zhao before her arrest and the police and prosecutor were working hand in hand to frame them.
Ms. Wang’s family called the court on March 28 and was told that she has been sentenced to five years with a 20,000 yuan fine. Judge Fan refused to provide a copy of her verdict or any other details but only revealed that the verdict was issued on March 18 and Ms. Wang has requested to appeal the term.
It’s not clear whether Ms. Zhao has been sentenced.
Ms. Wang is still held at the Heze City Detention Center at the time of writing. Her family is in deep distress about the persecution against her.
Related reports:
Two Shandong Women Have Been Detained for Nearly 1.5 Years, Mistreated in Custody
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