(Minghui.org) A 70-year-old resident of Huangchuan County, Henan Province, was sentenced to eight years for refusing to renounce her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Liu Changrong was arrested on October 17, 2018, as she was taking her grandson home after school.
The Huangchuan County Procuratorate twice returned her case to the police for insufficient evidence.
The police forced Ms. Liu’s family to admit that she allowed her home to be used for local practitioners to study the Falun Gong teachings together. The police also forced two of Ms. Liu’s neighbors to provide similar accounts in order to charge her.
Ms. Liu lost her hearing and vision in one eye after several months in the Xinyang City No.1 Detention Center. She couldn’t hear the prosecutor when she appeared in court on March 1, 2019, and was unable to defend herself.
The judge handed down a guilty verdict shortly after the hearing.
Past Persecution
Ms. Liu used to suffer from severe ailments and was unable to take care of herself. She recovered her health after she took up Falun Gong in 1996. She returned to work and took on many household chores.
When sales of the towels manufactured in the state-owned company where she worked were sluggish, she traveled around the country to find new customers. Her manager was often amazed at how Falun Gong had turned someone so incapacitated into a successful businessperson.
After the communist regime began the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Liu was repeatedly persecuted for refusing to give up her faith.
Shortly after 1999, Ms. Liu went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong, only to be arrested and sent to a brainwashing center.
She was arrested again and held in detention for a month in 2000 while visiting another local practitioner.
She was arrested for the third time and detained, along with several dozen other practitioners, for a month in 2001.
The police raided Ms. Liu’s home in 2004 and confiscated her Falun Gong books and materials. She was forced to live away from home to avoid being harassed. She was arrested as soon as she returned home a month later.
The police raided her home again in 2018, shortly before her latest arrest.
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