(Minghui.org) A Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province, resident was sentenced to 4.5 years on April 25, 2023 for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Given her high blood pressure, the judge gave Ms. Zhu Yanhua six months of house arrest (it’s not clear whether it’s included in the 4.5-year term).
But just after a little over one month, the judge ordered that Ms. Zhu be admitted to the Mudanjiang Railroad Hospital against her will. She will be transferred to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison as soon as her blood pressure returns to a normal level.
Ms. Zhu’s ordeal began on June 12, 2020, when the community officers went to her home and ordered her to renounce Falun Gong. Ms. Zhu refused to comply and tried to explain the persecution had no legal ground.
Between June and August 2020, the community office staff members and police officers monitored Ms. Zhu’s daily life. They followed her when she went out and videotaped her.
Two community workers and six police officers descended on Ms. Zhu’s home at 7 a.m. on August 14, 2020, claiming that she was videotaped by a woman for talking to people about Falun Gong. The police searched her home and confiscated the dress she was wearing in the video.
Due to the pandemic, the Mudanjiang City Detention Center refused to admit her. The police chief proposed to keep her at the police station for three days and then release her. But the political instructor Zhang Hua insisted on putting her in a detention center. He took her to the Bamiantong Detention Center, only to be told that they couldn’t admit her either due to her high blood pressure (150/110 mmHg).
Zhang held Ms. Zhu in custody for three days, before releasing her on bail. He also forbade her from leaving her home for a month.
Ma Xiaohuan, the deputy chief of Hualin Police Station, and two of his subordinates came to Ms. Zhu’s home on May 12, 2021 and ordered her to go to Yangming Court to resolve her case. She refused to comply and submitted a letter to the judge, urging him to dismiss her case.
The police arrested Ms. Zhu again on May 19, 2021, but she was still denied admission to the detention centers due to her high blood pressure. The police returned on June 4 and put her on six months of house arrest.
For the next few months, the police arrested Ms. Zhu multiple times and attempted to collect information against her. One of the arrests was by Wang Baolong, the head of Yangming District Domestic Security Office, on July 11, 2022. Her Falun Gong books and bank debit bards were confiscated.
To avoid being sentenced, Ms. Zhu decided to live away from home to hide from the police. After nine months of displacement, she returned home on April 22, 2023, only to be seen by the police and arrested shortly after. As she was again denied admission to the detention centers, the police took her home and put her on house arrest. She was made to stand trial at the Aimin District Court three days later on April 25 and was convicted.
The prosecution evidence used against Ms. Zhu included Falun Gong books and informational materials found at her home, as well as the fact that she had previously been given several administrative detentions for practicing Falun Gong. She denied having broken any law and vowed to appeal the verdict.
The judge said she was given ten days to file the appeal and the intermediate court has twenty days to make a decision about her appeal case. But at the same time, he also ordered her to start serving her six-month house arrest immediately after the sentencing. As she was denied contact with anyone during her house arrest, she had no way to contact her lawyer to file the appeal.
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