(Minghui.org) Twenty-seven residents of Nanyang City, Henan Province sentenced in late 2020 for practicing Falun Gong recently have their appeals rejected by the Nanyang City Intermediate Court.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
The 27 practitioners were targeted during a mass arrest of over 160 practitioners between August 30 and 31, 2019. Most of the arrests took place between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. It’s reported that the police and Political and Legal Affairs Committee, an extra-judiciary agency tasked with persecuting Falun Gong, had been monitoring the practitioners since April 2019. In July 2019, police officers and residential committee staffers visited the practitioners at home, collecting information about their IDs and household registration. Most practitioners also had their photos taken.
The 27 practitioners were tried by the Wancheng District Court on August 11, 2020. The court didn’t allow the practitioners to hire lawyers, but appointed lawyers to represent and enter guilty pleas for them.
The judge announced the verdicts on December 30, 2020. The practitioners were given sentences between seven months and thirteen years and fined between 3,000 to 50,000 yuan. They appealed the verdicts, but the Nanyang City Intermediate Court ruled to uphold their original sentences without a hearing on March 31, 2021.
In addition to the 27 practitioners, 14 other practitioners who were arrested on the same day were sentenced to 2-9 years in March 2021.
The 27 practitioners’ verdicts are:
Seventeen practitioners were ordered to serve time in prison:
Zhao Peiyuan was sentenced to 13 years with a 50,000-yuan fine.Wang Wei was sentenced to 9 years with a 40,000-yuan fine.Pan Dongxing was sentenced to 8 years with a 30,000-yuan fine.Lai Guimin was sentenced to 7 years and 8 months with a 30,000-yuan fine.Sun Tongren was sentenced to 7 years with a 40,000-yuan fine. Wang Xiaobi was sentenced to 7 years with a 30,000-yuan fine.Liang Zhaofang was sentenced to 4.5 years with a 30,000-yuan fine.Wen Jianhua was sentenced to 4 years with a 20,000-yuan fine. Tan Bo was sentenced to 4 years with a 20,000-yuan fine. Li Jierong was sentenced to 3 years with a 20,000-yuan fine.Chen Tao was sentenced to 3 years with a 20,000-yuan fine.Li Xiaoling was sentenced to 2 years with a 20,000-yuan fine.Dong Ju’an was sentenced to 2 years with a 10,000-yuan fine.Wang Yinglin was sentenced to 1 year and 10 months with a 10,000-yuan fine.Wang Qin was sentenced to 1 year and 3 months with 10,000 yuan fine.Wang Jingrui (Wang Wei’s sister) was sentenced to 1 year and 3 months with a 10,000-yuan fine.Wang Lianfeng was sentenced to 1 year and 3 months with a 10,000-yuan fine.
Nine practitioners were sentenced but given probation. They don’t have to serve the specified sentences in prison unless the probation conditions are violated during the specified probation periods.
Yang Fengdong was sentenced to 3 years with 5 years probation and a 20,000-yuan fine. Ge Fengzhi was sentenced to 3 years with 4 years probation and a 20,000-yuan fine.Wang Zhiqing was sentenced to 3 years with 4 years probation and a 20,000-yuan fine.Fang Baojun was sentenced to 3 years with 3 years probation and a 20,000-yuan fine.Liu Yuanzhen was sentenced to 2 years with 2 years probation and a 5,000-yuan fine.Song Henglin (husband of Wang Lianfeng) was sentenced to 1 year with 1.5 years probation and a 5,000-yuan fine.Qin Zhiwei was sentenced to 10 months with 1-year probation and a 3,000-yuan fine.Liu Huixia was sentenced to 7 months with 1-year probation and a 3,000-yuan fine.Diao Gaichun was sentenced to 7 months with 1-year probation and a 3,000-yuan fine.
The verdict of Liu Tianyu isn’t clear.
Among the 17 practitioners ordered to serve time in prison, two of them were arrested before. Mr. Zhao Peiyuan, in his 40s, was an elementary school teacher. For upholding his faith, he was fired by his school and was once sentenced to six years before his latest prison sentence.
Mr. Wang Wei, 55, works as a dentist at the Nanyang City No. 1 People’s Hospital. He was previously arrested on May 15, 2007, for talking to a patient about Falun Gong. He was arrested again on November 13, 2010, and held in a brainwashing center set up in a hotel.
Related reports:
Nanyang City, Henan Province: 14 Practitioners Targeted in Mass Arrest Sentenced to 2-9 Years
27 Falun Gong Practitioners Tried in One Day for Their Faith
Nanyang City, Henan Province: 32 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in Two Days
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