Academy of Science Graduate Student Hong Wei Is Secretly Sentenced to Ten Years in Prison

In the summer of 2003, Mr. Hong Wei, a graduate of Beijing University and a graduate student at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Microbiology Institute, was secretly sentenced to ten years in prison for allegedly "disturbing the public order." He is currently jailed in a Chongqing City prison.

Mr. Hong Wei used to live near Chongqing City, and began practising Falun Gong in 1994. He is known for his willingness to help others, and is widely regarded by his classmates as a good person. In 1998, after receiving his Bachelor of Science degree with excellent grades from Beijing University, he was permitted to directly enter the postgraduate programme at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Microbiology Institute without taking any qualifying exams.

After the persecution against Falun Gong started Mr. Hong was regularly detained in detention centres. Hong Wei was an "important target" on the authorities' blacklist, and because he refused to renounce Falun Gong, they made several futile attempts at brainwashing him. In January 2000, after one of his several arrests, the Microbiology Institute suspended him. The authorities manipulated Mr. Hong's relationship with his long widowed father, by twice making his father travel to Beijing in order to pressure him to renounce Falun Gong. This caused the elder Mr. Hong to become ill from worry and stress. In October 2000, Hong Wei was summarily dismissed from the Institute. To avoid police harassment, he was forced to become homeless and lead a difficult life moving from place to place. In late 2001 or early 2002, Mr. Hong was again arrested. In the summer of 2003, after having been detained without charges for over a year, Hong Wei was unjustly accused of "disturbing the public order," and was secretly given a ten-year sentence at a Chongqing City prison.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/3/22/70611.html