(Minghui.org) An 83-year-old man in Hefei City, Anhui Province, was imprisoned in November 2024 to serve a three-year term for his faith in Falun Gong. His family sought his release with various government agencies, only to be intimidated and accused of committing fraud by failing to notify his former workplace of his imprisonment.
Mr. Sun Shiwei, a retired employee of the Anhui Provincial Water Resources Department Irrigation and Drainage Station, was arrested by officers from the Jinxiu Police Station in 2020 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. Due to his poor health, he was soon released on bail.
The Shushan District Procuratorate indicted Mr. Sun on May 12, 2022. Judge Bi Dongfeng of the Shushan District Court summoned him several times. As Mr. Sun lives far away from the court, he had to take the bus for over two hours to get to the court each time. Bi urged him not to hire a lawyer, as the court would appoint a lawyer for him. Knowing that the court-appointed lawyer would be instructed to enter a guilty plea for him, Mr. Sun hired a lawyer.
During the hearing on June 2, 2023, Mr. Sun’s lawyer pointed out that his client lived in Baohe District, and was arrested for distributing Falun Gong materials in the Economic and Technological Development Zone, yet his case was being handled by the Shushan District Procuratorate and the Shushan District Court. Instead of answering the jurisdiction question, the judge adjourned the session. He didn’t say a word about the court location selection after resuming the hearing ten minutes later.
Mr. Sun’s daughter protested that the headset given to her father wasn’t working well and he couldn’t hear clearly what the judge or the lawyer was saying. The judge signaled two bailiffs to remove her from the courtroom.
When judge Bi sentenced Mr. Sun to a three-year prison term on August 31, 2023, he still pressed him to plead guilty. Mr. Sun insisted that he hadn’t violated any law by practicing Falun Gong. Bi ordered officers from the Jinxiu Police Station to take him for a physical exam, which was required for detention. Because Mr. Sun was found to have high blood sugar and extremely high blood pressure, he was denied admission to the Hefei City Detention Center and released.
Six months later, Bi ordered the police to take Mr. Sun for another physical exam. He still had high blood sugar and his systolic pressure was even higher, from 200 to 220 mmHg (normal is 120 mmHg or lower). Mr. Sun was allowed to go home in the evening.
After another six months, while Mr. Sun was having breakfast, the police showed up at his home again. His daughter condemned the police for persecuting her father. The officers said they had no choice but to follow the court’s order. Given his persistently high blood pressure, he was denied admission to the Hefei City Detention Center for the third time, and released.
In November 2024, when Mr. Sun was accompanying his wife to the hospital to get some medicine, the police called him and asked for his whereabouts. They then came directly to the hospital and took him to the police station. Without providing him with breakfast or lunch, they took him to a hospital at around 3 p.m. for another physical exam. While the result wasn’t clear, this time he was admitted to the Hefei City Detention Center.
After three days of detention, Mr. Sun was transferred to the Suzhou Prison (about 150 miles from Hefei) and has been held there since. Around early July 2025, his 79-year-old wife and daughter took the train to the prison to visit him. The train station police searched them on their way back and told them that they had been put on the government’s “key watch list.”
When Mr. Sun’s wife and daughter went to visit him again shortly after, the prison guards claimed that some of their equipment was broken and the family wouldn’t be able to visit him in person for the next three months; instead, they could apply to have virtual meetings with him. After the family spent much effort applying for virtual meetings, the Hefei City Justice Bureau has yet to issue an approval.
Given Mr. Sun’s persistently high blood sugar and blood pressure, his wife was worried about him. She wrote the Supreme People’s Procuratorate to seek justice, only to receive a reply from the Hefei City Procuratorate two weeks later, saying that the case was beyond their jurisdiction.
The family also called the police complaint hotline 12389, but the line was always busy.
The family then wrote to the mayor of Hefei and president of the Hefei City Procuratorate. But shortly after they mailed the letters, they received a call from Li Jun, the manager of Mr. Sun’s previous workplace, saying that all of his retirement benefits were being suspended, and that his daughter must pay a debt of 14,329 yuan to the Anhui Provincial Water Resources Department, per a letter from the Shushan District Court.
Mr. Sun’s daughter was shocked to hear this and accused the manager of extortion. Another manager with the Anhui Provincial Water Resources Department surnamed Wan pointed at her nose and said, “Let me tell you, on the day your father was jailed, you didn’t tell us about it. That’s fraud! Now, along with the Shushan District Court and the Hefei City Social Security Bureau, we are suing you for committing fraud!”
Related Report:
Belated News: Three Anhui Residents Sentenced to Prison for Practicing Falun Gong
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