Six Practitioners Sentenced in Shanghai

In late March 2007, the Xuhui District Court in Shanghai sentenced six Falun Dafa practitioners. Ms. Bai Gendi was sentenced to four and a half years in prison, Mr. Zhou Licheng to six years, Ms. You Xiuyun received a six and a half year sentence, Ms. Wang Guifang three and a half years, and Ms. Zhou Qin and Ms. Yuan Xiufang each received two years, with two years suspended.

These six practitioners were arrested by the police during the Shanghai Six Summit (a summit between China, Russia and Central Asian countries) in late May 2006. Prior to their arrests, they had been followed, monitored and had their phones tapped by the police for a long time. To gather "evidence" and fabricate witness testimony, the Xuhui District Police Department, Procuratorate and Court as well as the Shanghai 610 Office¹ kept postponing the court trial. The practitioners were imprisoned at the Xuhui District Detention Centre for more than ten months before their first court trial on March 24th, 2007. During that time, the Shanghai 610 Office closely guarded information about the practitioners' detention.

Ms. Bai Gendi was severely tortured at the Xuhui District Detention Centre. Another reason that the Shanghai 610 Office postponed the court date was to keep the practitioners' family members from finding out that the practitioners had been tortured.

In the court session on March 24th, 2007, the primary evidence for the charges against these six practitioners were nearly 500 unmailed letters to Shanghai government officials asking them not to involve themselves in the persecution against Falun Gong, and printed copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party ² found at Ms. You Xiuyun's home.

Four Dafa practitioners, including Mr. Zhou Licheng, Ms. Bai Gendi and Ms. You Xiuyun were handcuffed during the court trial. Although they were very thin due to the persecution in detention, the practitioners defended their innocence solemnly, telling the court that Dafa practitioners' informing people about the persecution of Falun Gong and dispelling the state propaganda attacking the practice is not a crime.

The righteous words from the practitioners made the judge dare not sentence them in court. The trial was quickly closed. A few days later the trial continued, but the court did not notify any of the family members. It even prohibited the practitioners' lawyers from informing them. Ten days after the court trial, these six practitioners received their court sentences in the mail but many of their families never received the sentencing notice.

Among these six practitioners, some had been tortured by the Shanghai 610 Office many times before. For example, Ms. Bai Gendi, 52, was the first practitioner from Shanghai to be sent to a forced labour camp. In October 1999, the Shanghai 610 Office sentenced her to two years of forced labour, using the excuse that she did the Falun Gong exercises outside the Shanghai Stadium after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong. The real reason was that her righteous thoughts and righteous actions had greatly influenced and inspired practitioners at the Shanghai Jiaotong University exercise centre.

At the Shanghai City Women's Forced Labour Camp, Ms. Bai Gendi was handcuffed with her arms behind her back, forced to perform excessive labour, and not allowed to meet with or even write to her family. But she never gave up her cultivation. She opposed the persecution at every instance. People there witnessed the solemness of Dafa in her actions. Many people who knew Ms. Bai, including the guards, respected her very much. She left the forced labour camp openly and nobly in October, 2001, however three months later, in March 2002, Bai Gendi was arrested again and her home was ransacked. Then she was sentenced to three years of forced labour because the Shanghai 610 Office wanted to make her an example for persecution.

In February 2005, Ms. Bai Gendi again openly left the forced labour camp. Four months later, in June 2005, she was once again arrested and her home was ransacked. She was imprisoned at Xuhui District Detention Centre. A policeman held the Nine Commentaries CD found at her home and threatened her, "A single copy of the Nine Commentaries will get you four years in prison. We have found so many copies at your home, you could spend your entire life in prison." Ms. Bai Gendi held a hunger strike and water fast for ten days to oppose the persecution. Her health was soon in critical condition. A month later, she was able to leave the detention centre.

In early 2006, to avoid police interference and harassment, Bai Gendi left home and went into hiding. However, the Shanghai 610 Office did not let up on their persecution of her. After she was arrested in May 2006, they wanted to use the 500 letters as evidence that she was "coercing" others to write these letters.

Ms. You Xiuyun, 58, lives at Apt. 104, Building 89, the Third sub-division on Longshui South Road. Ms. You Xiuyun had colon cancer before she started practising Falun Gong. After she began the practice, her colon cancer quickly disappeared. Her relatives and friends witnessed the miracle and wonderfulness of Dafa. After the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong began in 1999, Ms. You Xiuyun remained firm in Dafa. She was sentenced to forced labour in 2002. Before she was taken to the forced labour camp, the Shanghai 610 Office told her that because of her cancer history, she could go home immediately if she wrote a statement promising to no longer practise Falun Gong. Ms. You Xiuyun did not comply with them. While she was at the forced labour camp, her husband could not bear the pressure any longer, and had a stroke and passed away. The forced labour camp guards asked her daughter to write a letter to Ms. You saying that if she did not give up cultivation, her daughter would not acknowledge her as her mother. Actually, the forced labour camp used this method to break some practitioners. The guards would repeatedly read the letter in public to make the practitioner feel that their relatives no longer cared about them. Ms. You Xiuyun's daughter rejected this request. After that, the forced labour camp never answered her phone calls about her mother.

Information about other sentenced practitioners:

Mr. Zhou Licheng, around 65, lives at building 15, Third Sub-division of the Yuannan region.
Ms. Zhou Qin, the daughter of Mr. Zhou Licheng. She was said to be a non-practitioner but she helped her elderly father.
Ms. Yuan Xiufang, 61, lives at Building 6, Huicheng Forth sub-division, Apt. 102.
Ms. Wang Guifang was sentenced two years of forced labour once.

Phone Numbers (Country code 86 for China, area code 21 for Shanghai)
Procurator Xu Zhenhui, Xuhui District Procuratorate Public Accusation Section: 64872222 ext. 2409
Judge Lu Wenjia, Xuhui District Court: 64680966 ext 2426
Chief Judge Peng Tao, Acting Judge Zuo Jingming, Recorder Chen Jie
Policemen of the National Security Team, Xuhui Police Department: Wang Weixing and Yan Zhiling 901 Tianyaoqiao Road 64868911 ext. 37219, 37214
Xuhui District Detention Centre: 398 Longwu Road, #15, Xuhui District, Shanghai, zip code 200232
Director of the Xuhui District Detention Center, Yu Weiguo, policeman Xu Zhihua, phone: 64868911

Note

1. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

2. Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party: Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party is a series of essays published in late 2004 that reveal the true nature of the Communist Party. The Nine Commentaries have led millions of people to renounce their membership in the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). "A book that has shocked all Chinese around the world. A book that is disintegrating the Communist Party." http://ninecommentaries.com

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2007/4/19/153056.html