(Minghui.org) Three residents of Huaihua City, Hunan Province, were wrongly convicted on February 13, 2025, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Wu Fangming, around 60, was given four years. Ms. Yin Qiuyang, 76, was sentenced to three and a half years. Ms. Jiang Changxian, around 59, received three years. They are likely still held at the Huaihua City Detention Center.
The three women were arrested between September and October 2023. Their cases were assigned to the Zhijiang County Procuratorate and Zhijiang County Court, both of which were designated to handle Falun Gong cases in the great Huaihua region.
Prosecutor Zhou Yulan of the Zhijiang County Procuratorate indicted the three practitioners at an unknown time and later submitted their cases to the Zhijiang County Court, which started prosecuting them separately in March 2024.
Ms. Wu appeared in court on March 18, 2024, but the trial was declared a mistrial one hour later. The court instead held a pre-trial conference on April 12, 2024. Ms. Yin was set to stand trial on March 26, 2024, but upon her lawyer’s request, her court date was rescheduled for April 12, 2024. Ms. Jiang’s court date was initially set for March 27, 2024, but was postponed to April 8. The April 8th hearing was changed to a “prosecutor-led hearing” at the last minute. [In China, a “prosecutor-led hearing” is facilitated by the prosecutor in charge of the indictment process and may be held either before or after a verdict is reached. The purpose is to hear different parties’ concerns about the trial or already-determined verdict.]
The three women appeared in court again separately on December 16-17, 2024. The judge, Chen Qingzhen, who presided over the three trials, and the prosecutor, Zhou Yulan, who charged the trio both yelled, “Don’t talk to me about the law” during the hearings. For details of the December 2024 hearings, see the first related report below.
New Information about Ms. Yin’s First Hearing
More than forty family members of Ms. Yin came to attend her first hearing on April 12, 2024 but were all barred from going inside. They were told it was judge Chen’s decision.
Ms. Yin’s lawyer had submitted a legal opinion to the procuratorate and the court prior to the hearing, urging the agencies to drop the case. After the hearing began, he was shocked to see judge Chen and prosecutor Zhou there, when it was a different judge and prosecutor he had been dealing with earlier on. By law, he should have been notified of such personnel changes.
The lawyer also protested against Chen’s decision to prohibit Ms. Yin’s loved ones from attending the trial. He requested that Chen and Zhou be recused from the case. Chen adjourned the session in response and later held a second hearing on December 16, 2024.
Ms. Yin was sentenced on February 13, 2025, and so were Ms. Wu and Ms. Jiang. Prior to her latest sentencing, Ms. Yin served an unknown term of forced labor starting in mid-January 2002 and two prison terms totaling seven years (April 2008 – April 2011 and April 2014 – April 2018).
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