(Minghui.org) Minghui.org previously reported on the four-year prison sentence of a 75-year-old woman in Mian County, Shaanxi Province, for her faith in Falun Gong. New information has emerged to provide more details about her arrest, sentencing, and appeal.
Ms. Du Shuhui, a retired accountant at the Urban Construction Bureau of Mian County, was home at 3 p.m. on November 21, 2023, when three black-clad officers from the Dingjunshan Police Station, including deputy chief Yue Xiaodong, broke in to raid her residence. They ordered her to go with them and promised to send her back before dinner. She complied, only to be taken straight to a legal education center for interrogation.
Ms. Du was restrained in a metal chair and not given anything to eat. Her blood pressure shot up and she collapsed. The police released her at 9 p.m. and issued a decision the next day to detain her at a later time. They then established a case against her on November 25, 2023. By law, the detention notice should come after a case has been established.
Deputy chief Ding raided Ms. Du’s home again on December 7, 2023, and took her back into custody. She was issued a formal arrest warrant days later on December 19 and put in the Hantai District Detention Center in Hanzhong City, which oversees Mian County.
Ms. Du’s dentures fell out on May 8, 2024 and she could not chew food. She had to crush rice grains with her fingers and soak them in water before eating. Her family was denied visits with her and their request to have her released and her case dropped received no response.
Prosecutor Zhuang Shuxian from the Mian County Procuratorate indicted Ms. Du. The Mian County heard the case in April 2024 (exact date unknown) and appointed a lawyer surnamed Qi to represent her. Two months later, a detention center guard told her family that she was held in an isolation cell and appealing her prison sentence. He didn’t reveal when exactly Ms. Du was sentenced.
Ms. Du’s family received a copy of the verdict on January 10, 2025 and noted that she was also fined 6,000 yuan. The verdict bore the signatures of presiding judge Huang Yiming, judges Jin Chunhua and Song Xiaohong, their assistant Xu Qi, and clerk Shi Xiaohui.
The verdict also stated that Wang Shuning and Hu Qian from the Hanzhong City Police Department “verified” that the Falun Gong informational materials confiscated from Ms. Du’s home were “illegal propaganda pieces.”
Several “witness testimonies” were cited in the verdict. Ms. Du’s family noted that the witness statements were almost identical. They suspected that it was either forged evidence against her or the “witnesses” were coerced by the police into giving identical confessions.
The verdict also stated that none of the witnesses was present during the trial to accept cross examination, despite requests from Ms. Du. No physical items of the “prosecution evidence” were shown in court, either.
Ms. Du’s family hired a lawyer from Beijing to assist with her appeal. The lawyer discovered that the trial court consulted with the Hanzhong City Intermediate Court before hearing the case in April 2024. By law, the trial court should make independent decisions. According to the lawyer, if the higher court had approved of the prison sentence in the first place, how could it uphold justice for the appellant later on?
Judge Li Sitong from the Hanzhong City Intermediate Court refused to hold a hearing in the appeals case, which is still pending at the time of writing.
This is not the first time that Ms. Du has been targeted for her faith, which she credits for curing her numerous illnesses, including bronchial asthma, tracheitis, gallstones, cholecystitis, chronic nephritis, gastritis, adnexitis, frozen shoulder, cervical neuritis, neurasthenia, migraine, tinnitus, ringing in the head, hemorrhoids, and constipation.
Ms. Du held firm to her faith after the persecution began in 1999 but was repeatedly targeted by the authorities. Prior to her latest prison sentence, she was detained in a forced labor camp and a prison for a total of eleven years for refusing to give up her faith in Falun Gong. See the related reports for details of her past persecution.
Related Reports:
Retired Accountant Endured Over a Decade of Detention and Torture for Her Faith
Six Hanzhong Practitioners Illegally Arrested, Officials Responsible Incur Retribution
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