(Minghui.org) A Beijing resident filed an appeal with the Beijing No. 3 Intermediate Court against a 3.5-year wrongful sentence for her faith in Falun Gong. She is now awaiting the result at the Chaoyang Detention Center.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Su Huina, a native of Dandong City, Liaoning Province working in Beijing, was arrested on September 30, 2019, after she was seen putting up Falun Gong posters by a surveillance camera. The police searched her bag and took away the remaining posters. They also ransacked her home and confiscated over 40 Falun Gong books and other materials.
Ms. Su’s family hired a lawyer, who visited her twice, in November 2019 and on December 4, 2019, respectively. When the lawyer visited her a third time on January 7, 2020, he learned from Ms. Su that the police had submitted her case to the local procuratorate five days prior. It’s not clear whether the police provided updates about Ms. Su’s case to her lawyer.
As Ms. Su’s lawyer only agreed to enter a guilty plea for her, Ms. Su dismissed him around June 22.
The prosecutor indicted her around June 29 and forwarded her case to the Chaoyang District Court. Ms. Su told the court that she would act as her own lawyer and she refused to plead guilty.
Ms. Su appeared in court on November 6. She entered a not guilty plea for herself and urged all the people handling her case to make their decision based on their conscience, not the government’s unlawful persecution policy. The judge still sentenced her to three years and six months.
The court didn't inform Ms. Su's family of the verdict. They only found out about it when they called the court on December 3. A court staffer said that they were no longer in charge of her case and it was futile to appeal the sentence. When her family called the court again days later, they were unable to get hold of anyone to address their concerns about Ms. Su's wrongful conviction.
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