Mr. Cao Guozhen Sentenced to Eight Years of Prison at Junan County, Shandong Province

Mr. Cao Guozhen is 36 years old. On October 12th, 2007, police officers from Junan County and the Zhulu Town Station entered Mr. Cao's home and confiscated personal property including a TV, DVD player, satellite receiver, laptop, and Falun Gong leaflets exposing the persecution. They drove away Mr. Cao's little auto-taxi and arrested Mr. Cao.

Initially, Mr. Cao's family was told that he was being held at the Junan County Detention Centre. They heard nothing else because the police from Junan county denied Mr. Cao's family's requests to visit him, and also refused to forward any clothes or money to him. They simply claimed that Mr. Cao was holding a hunger strike as a form of protest.

Mr. Cao's family visited the Junan County Police Department many times asking for permission to visit him. They also asked for his unconditional release but without any results. Mr. Cao's parents spent all their savings on these efforts. They are both in their seventies and had to travel over thirty miles each way with their little grandson, to plead with the authorities. On one occasion they were even brutally beaten by someone on the way.

In June 2008, the family of Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Cao Guozhen, in Junan County, Linyi City, Shandong Province, received a notice saying that Mr. Cao Guozhen had been sentenced to eight years in prison by the Junan County Court. He was taken to the Jinan City Prison on June 11th, 2008. The return address on the notice was: Drawer 11, P.O. Box 210, Jinan City Prison 91 Industry South Road (Qingqi Road), Jinan City.

Mr. Cao Guozhen

It is strange that in March 2008, Mr. Cao's family had received another prison admission notice from the Tai'an Prison. This notice made no mention of the duration of Mr. Cao's term. Since the admission notice from June 2008 was sent from the Jinan City Prison, the family was left to wonder which notice was correct and where Mr. Cao was actually being held.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.cc/mh/articles/2008/7/16/182137.html