(Minghui.org) A 57-year-old resident of Xingtai City, Hebei Province, was sentenced to four years in October 2024 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Hu Hui, a former teacher, is appealing her wrongful conviction. Prior to her latest persecution, she was repeatedly arrested for her faith over the years. She was held at a labor camp for more than one year and served two years in prison.
Ms. Hu was arrested at her mother-in-law’s home in Nangong City in the same province on July 17, 2023, less than one year after she was released from prison on August 27, 2022. The arresting officers from the Nangong City Domestic Security Division raided her home in Xingtai and submitted her case to the Nangong City Procuratorate on August 6, 2023. Ten days later, prosecutor Sun Jianli forwarded her case to the Ningjin County Procuratorate. Both Nangong City and Ningjin County are under the administration of Xingtai City.
Ms. Hu’s lawyer from Beijing, Mr. Cheng Hai, submitted a legal opinion to the Ningjin County Procuratorate on the day her case was submitted there. He requested that his client not be issued a formal arrest warrant and that the arresting officers be investigated for violating legal procedures.
Prosecutor Du Xichen nonetheless issued a formal arrest warrant for Ms. Hu on August 24, 2023, but later twice returned the case to the police citing insufficient evidence. Du, however, indicted Ms. Hu after the police submitted her case a third time.
While awaiting trial, Ms. Hu filed a complaint against her perpetrators on August 16, 2024 and requested that they be held accountable for arresting, indicting and prosecuting her when she broke no law in exercising her constitutional right to freedom of belief.
Ms. Hu stood trial at the Ningjin County Court on September 12, 2024 and was sentenced to four years the following month. Her trial lawyer visited her on October 24 and learned that she filed an appeal.
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