Several Falun Gong Practitioners in Suihua City Sentenced Recently

Recently, several Falun Gong practitioners in Suihua City were sentenced after talking about Falun Gong to people.

Ms. Zhou Guilan was a retired employee from Forest Machine Shop. She endured many hardships in her life and suffered from several diseases. The doctor said that it would cost 400,000 yuan¹ to cure her rheumatoid arthritis and gallstones. She also had lung cancer. She started to practise Falun Gong. After she began studying the Falun Gong book Zhuan Falun and doing the exercises for few months, all of her diseases disappeared.

Ms. Zhou wanted to let more people know that Falun Gong is great, so she visited many places and talked to everyone she met. She was arrested by Wang Shubo and Li Jianfei from Beilin District 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and was detained at a detention centre. Later she was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment by judge Cui Hongyuan. Her family hired a lawyer to plead not guilty for her. However, on March 29th, 2012, before the second hearing took place she was persecuted to death after suffering in the prison for seven and a half months. She was 64 years old.

Mr. Liu Fucai is from Minxiang Village, Zhangwei Town. He is 50 years old. He used to have several diseases. His back and bilateral femoral heads were necrotic. He heard that Falun Gong had powerful health benefits. With the help of crutches, he walked to the exercise site to learn the exercises. However, one month later he didn't need crutches any more. His temper became better, and he even helped the neighbours with their work.

On March 5th, Mr. Liu was arrested while he was explaining the facts about Falun Gong. His family hired a lawyer from Harbin City. Judge Cui Hongyuan was afraid of the lawyer's defence, and thus secretly held the hearing.

After learning the details, the lawyer became very angry and questioned the judge, “What did Mr. Liu do wrong by practising Falun Gong? What is he guilty of when he tells people about Falun Gong and his own experiences? What harm did he do to society? He used to have tuberculosis and femoral head necrosis. He was cured through practising Falun Gong. Citizens have the right to free speech. Why would he get sentenced to jail just because he spoke about Falun Gong? Why do you deprive him of his right to defence by a lawyer?” The lawyer's words shocked the judge and made him speechless. The lawyer requested to have another hearing, and said he would respond seven days later.

However, when the lawyer called Cui Hongyuan and asked him about the next hearing, the judge said that he asked the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and was told Falun Gong practitioners must be heavily sentenced. Now the Suihua City Political and Legal Affairs Committee and Heilongjiang Province 610 Office are working together to threaten the lawyer to stop him from defending Mr. Liu.

Other people who also suffered from the same unjust sentence are: Yao Zhenhua, who was sentenced to four years of imprisonment by judge Zhang Rui; Liu Yuhua, who was sentenced to two years of imprisonment by Zhang Rui; and Liu Shenglian, who was sentenced to one and a half years in a forced labour camp.

Note

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