(Minghui.org) After Ms. Meng Yu’s appeal against the 3.5-year prison sentence for practicing Falun Gong was rejected, her husband continued to seek justice for her by filing a motion to reconsider her case.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Meng, a middle-school teacher in Dongying City, Shandong Province, was arrested at work on April 23, 2021. The police ransacked her home and confiscated her Falun Gong-related items and her husband’s work computer, cellphone, and two portable drives with important data from his work. None of the officers were wearing a police uniform and their ID badges were also covered by some black objects.
Ms. Meng’s husband, Mr. Zhou Gong, a senior design engineer, was also taken to the police station and interrogated for six hours.
The Dongying District Court held two hearings of Ms. Meng’s case, in March and May 2022. She was charged with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong in China. The presiding judge, Yan Xiaohui, barred Mr. Zhou from attending both hearings and deprived him of the right to represent her as a family defender. Ms. Meng wasn’t allowed to testify in her own defense either.
Mr. Zhou demanded to visit Ms. Meng after the hearings but was told by the detention center that he had to obtain permission from the police. When he contacted the police, they rejected his request, with the excuse that they were preparing to take Ms. Meng to prison.
Ms. Meng appealed with the Dongying City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold her original verdict without having a hearing. Mr. Zhou recently filed a motion to reconsider her case with the Dongying City Court.
In November 2022, the Dongying City Education Bureau informed Ms. Meng’s school that her salary would be suspended. Her husband demanded to see a written document for the decision, only to be told that it was just an oral notice.
Husband’s Plea
Mr. Zhou said that after Ms. Meng took up Falun Gong, she changed to a much better and more considerate person.
Mr. Zhou’s father suffered severe incontinence when he became bedridden a few years ago. Ms. Meng often had to remove his feces by hand. She never complained, but always cleaned him well, making sure he could rest comfortably.
While the couple’s son was studying abroad and relying on them for financial support, Mr. Zhou’s two sisters asked to borrow a total of more than 200,000 yuan from them to pay off personal debts and a house mortgage. Even though her own family also needed money, especially given their son’s study abroad, she didn’t hesitate to lend the money to her sisters-in-law, without charging any interest when they returned it many years later.
Mr. Zhou said that he used to be concerned about the persecution. But while he worked to rescue his wife this time, he took the time to study the law and realized that no law ever criminalizes Falun Gong in China.
He wrote in the motion, “My wife was charged with ‘undermining law enforcement with a cult organization.’ Can the judge tell me when my wife allegedly joined what cult organization and which other members were there? What was my wife’s role in it? How did my wife’s alleged involvement in it lead to her alleged obstruction of law enforcement?
“On the other hand, how could one undermine law enforcement by practicing Falun Gong? Before the persecution, why were none of the people who practiced Falun Gong charged with undermining law enforcement? My wife is a good person with a high moral caliber. She should be acquitted and released.”
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