(Minghui.org) Mr. Kong Fanxiao was released on November 17, 2019, after serving three years in Benxi Prison.
Mr. Kong, 57, of Fushun City, Liaoning Province, was arrested on November 17, 2016, when he was accompanying a fellow Falun Gong practitioner, Mr. Du Xinggui, to deliver Mr. Du’s defense statement to Hedong Police Station.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Du was arrested on June 29, 2016, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. He was tried in the Shuncheng District Court on November 10, 2016.
Mr. Du acted as his own lawyer and pled “not guilty.” Because none of the police officers who’d arrested him attended his hearing, he decided to deliver a copy of his defense statement to them in hopes that they could understand that practicing Falun Gong doesn’t violate any law in China and the persecution itself doesn’t have any legal basis.
Instead of accepting the document, the police arrested Mr. Kong who was with Mr. Du.
Mr. Du was sentenced to three years on November 28, 2016.
Mr. Kong was sentenced to three years in prison by the same court on March 1, 2017. He appealed the verdict to Fushun City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold his sentence on June 15, 2017.