(Minghui.org) An education expert and his wife were sentenced to prison one year after they were arrested for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Tang Haihai, former deputy director of the education bureau in Shenzhen City, Guangdong Province, was arrested in March 2020 with his wife Ms. Sun Xuexin, shortly after they returned from visiting a family member in the U.S.

The couple was held at the Nanshan District Detention Center. It was recently confirmed that Mr. Tang has been sentenced to one year and two months and Ms. Sun to three years. More detail about their cases isn’t clear.

Mr. Tang used to work at Shenzhen Senior High School, a key, high-ranking school in Guangdong Province. Because of the students’ excellent academic performance under his leadership, he was promoted to the deputy director of the Shenzhen City Education Bureau in 2003.

As soon as the authorities found out he practiced Falun Gong, however, he was removed from the post and appointed as the associate dean of Shenzhen Institute of Communication. In a few years, the students’ scores in college entrance exams fell to last place among all cities in the province, and the education bureau hired Mr. Tang back to help the students. After Mr. Tang retired, he often gave free seminars to schools in Shenzhen on how to improve education quality.