(Minghui.org) A 58-year-old woman in Chengde City, Hebei Province was sentenced to nine years for her faith in Falun Gong, her lawyer learned in late May 2025. He helped her file an appeal and learned in mid-June 2025 that the case has registered with the Chengde City Intermediate Court.
Ms. Chen Yanqiu, who makes a living by selling boxed lunches to construction workers, was cooking at home on July 12, 2024, when a group of officers from the Chengde City Police Department, the Gaoxin District Police Department, the Chengde County Police Department, and the Fengyingzi Police Department broke in.
None of the officers wore uniforms. Without showing a search warrant, they raided Ms. Chen’s home and confiscated her Falun Gong books, printer, flash drives, card readers, and 15,000 yuan in cash. Her husband videotaped the police on his phone, and they snatched it from him.
After the raid, the police cuffed Ms. Chen’s hands behind her back, carried her into a private car and took her to the Shuangfengsi Detention Center. She was not given a list of the items they confiscated.
Ms. Chen’s family was harassed many times after her arrest. The police threatened to jeopardize her daughter’s career and forced the younger woman to record videos to try to transform her mother. The younger woman’s two cell phones were also confiscated, and the police refused to return them on the grounds that they hadn’t concluded her mother’s case yet.
The Shuangqiao District Procuratorate forwarded Ms. Chen’s case to the Shuangqiao District Court on November 12, 2024. The presiding judge set a court date for December 27, 2024, but did not notify Ms. Chen’s family. He claimed that because she was an adult, there was no need to inform her family. Her lawyer later found out about the hearing date and notified her family.
The hearing was scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. on December 27, 2024, but didn’t start until after 4 p.m. that day. Ms. Chen was not given anything to eat or drink while she waited, despite her repeated requests.
The judge did not allow Ms. Chen’s daughter to represent her as a non-lawyer defender on the grounds that she had been made a witness to the case. She argued that she did not say anything during the police interrogation that would incriminate her mother. She condemned the police for fabricating evidence. The judge then complained that his efforts in holding a hearing were in vain and aborted the hearing about one hour into the session.
A second hearing was held on January 7, 2025. This time the judge only allowed one member of Ms. Chen’s family to attend. Her lawyer protested, but to no avail. She then had a relapse of her heart condition and the judge canceled the hearing. Her family later went to the local appeals office to complain about the judge’s decision to only allow one spectator at the session.
A third hearing was held on February 10, 2025. Ms. Chen’s lawyer pointed out that she was arrested solely because of her faith in Falun Gong. The police targeted her after a government official received a letter which originated from Chengde County, urging him to stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. There’s nothing wrong in sending out letters about Falun Gong, but Ms. Chen did not write or mail the said letter.
The police insisted that Ms. Chen was the author of the letter. They used the items confiscated from her home as evidence against her. They also listed her daughter as a prosecution witness without her knowledge.
The police also went to the construction site Ms. Chen frequented to sell lunch boxes and offered 500 yuan reward to anyone who testified against her. The workers there replied that no one would incriminate a good person like Ms. Chen for some petty money. Her lawyer recorded the workers’ words in support of her and requested that they be included in the trial. The judge refused to admit this as evidence or allow the lawyer to call the construction workers to court to testify. The police officer’s fabricated evidence that allegedly came from the construction workers, however, was admitted in the trial.
The prosecutor also cited Ms. Chen’s prior arrest in 2016 (also for her faith) as another piece of evidence against her. She was released on bail that year after posting an 8,000-yuan bond, which was later returned to her in 2022. The two incidents (the arrests in 2016 arrest and in 2024) were not related, yet the judge allowed the prosecutor to link them together to have more “evidence” against Ms. Chen.
Related Report:
58-Year-Old Hebei Woman Stands Trial for Practicing Falun Gong
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