Practitioners Ms. Chen Peizhu and Ms. Huang Cailan from Guangxi Autonomous Region Sentenced in October 2006

On June 4th, 2006, police officers from the Longlin County Police Department in the Guangxi Autonomous Region arrested Falun Gong practitioners Ms. Chen Peizhu and Ms. Huang Cailan at their homes. An court hearing was held secretly in October. Family members were not informed of the hearing until an insider told them about it less than one day before. Wei Yong (male) and one other person from the Prosecutor's Office at the Longlin County Procuratorate brought fabricated charges against them in the absence of a defence lawyer or witnesses. Ms. Chen Peizhu wanted to share her experiences of practising Falun Gong with the court, but Chief Justice Huang He (male) rejected her request.

Soon after the hearing, Ms. Chen Peizhu was sentenced to five and a half years and Ms. Huang Cailan to three and a half years in prison. Again, the court did not inform the family members of Ms. Chen Peizhu or Ms. Huang Cailan.

Ms. Chen Peizhu is 64 years old. Since childhood, she suffered from symptoms of polio. She previously had difficulty walking and needed someone's assistance. Her severe disabilities made her pessimistic and unhappy and she even thought of committing suicide. After July 1993, when she started practising Falun Gong, she felt good both mentally and physically and her morality also improved. Even though she never attended school, she was able to fluently read all the Falun Dafa books. She became able to walk by herself and live on her own. When Longlin County experienced severe flooding, this disabled Falun Gong practitioner generously donated disaster relief materials amounting to more than 400 yuan¹ in value.

The gang surrounding [former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader] Jiang started brutally persecuting Falun Gong practitioners on July 20th, 1999, and in 2002, Ms. Chen Peizhu was sentenced to four years in prison because she refused to give up Falun Gong. Due to her severe disabilities, no prisons were willing to accept her and she was therefore detained in the county detention centre. Her latest arrest resulted in another term of five and a half years. We have learned that the authorities contacted many prisons, even as far away as Hainan Province, in order to find one that would accept her.

Ms. Huang Cailan is in her forties and recently widowed. After she was detained, and no one has been looking after her aged mother who is in poor health. Her child is still attending school and the whole family has been thrown into a crisis.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2007/1/31/147953.html