(Minghui.org) Two residents of Bayan County, Heilongjiang Province, were sentenced to prison for practicing Falun Gong, Minghui.org learned recently.

Ms. Zhu Chonghua, born in December 1970, was given five years. She credits Falun Gong for helping her to recover from bronchitis, slipped disc, and rheumatism. Mr. Wan Guojun received three years.

The two practitioners’ wrongful convictions stemmed from their arrests in the second half of 2025. Officers from the Bayan County Police Department and the Diyi Police Station pried open the door to Ms. Zhu’s home on July 8 and arrested her. They claimed she having distributed Falun Gong materials in an apartment building. She was sent to the Harbin City Women’s Detention Center. Harbin oversees Bayan County.

The same group of officers also attempted to arrest Mr. Wan on the same day. He was not home, and the police left after searching his residence. They returned in early September 2025 and waited outside his home. He was then arrested and put in the Yilan County Detention Center. Yilan is also under the administration of Harbin City. He went on a hunger strike in protest and became very weak.

The police submitted the cases against the two practitioners to the Yilan County Procuratorate. Ms. Zhu’s case was twice returned. Captain Wang Hongzhi (86+15545997000) from the Bayan County Police Department deposed her multiple times, promising to give her a lighter sentence if she agreed to write statements to renounce her faith. He also pressured her husband to “work on her” and instructed her lawyer to pressure her to write the statements during the lawyer-client meetings. Wang threatened to implicate her children if she refused to comply.

The Yilan County Court held two joint hearings of the cases, on March 12 and May 7, 2026, respectively. Ms. Zhu and Mr. Wan were later sentenced at an unknown time.