(Minghui.org) A 72-year-old Beijing resident was tried by the Chaoyang District Court on April 19, 2021 for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Gu Xiaohua was arrested on April 17, 2019. The police ransacked her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and a dozen cellphones. The police submitted her case to the Chaoyang District Procuratorate on July 18, 2019. The prosecutor indicted her on January 9, 2020 and moved her case to the Chaoyang District Court.

For more than a year, the Chaoyang District Detention Center refused to allow Ms. Gu’s lawyer to visit her. The lawyer applied with the court several times to release Ms. Gu on bail, but was refused by the judge. 

Ms. Gu insisted that she didn’t violate any law in practicing Falun Gong and she refused to wear shackles or handcuffs during the court hearing, which took place in the detention center. Her lawyer wasn’t allowed to defend her in court.

Since the onset of the persecution, Ms. Gu has been repeatedly targeted for her faith. She was given 1.5 years of forced labor in January 2002, sentenced to 4 years in November 2005 and given another 2.5 years of forced labor in February 2009.