(Minghui.org) Ms. Hou Lifeng, from Fangzheng County, Heilongjiang Province, was illegally sentenced to two years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan by the Yilan County Court on September 26, 2018. Her attorney appealed her case.
Ms. Hou's husband contacted Zhang Anke from Yilan County Court on November 2, 2018, and was told that only Ms. Hou had been informed of the verdict. He refused to tell the family anything.
Ms. Hou informed her attorney on November 13, 2018, that someone from the court had met with her several days prior and asked her to agree not to appeal.
Her son and daughter live in Japan. They are calling on kindhearted people and related human rights organizations to help secure their mother's release immediately.
Ms. Hou, 66, and her husband began practicing Falun Gong in 1997. Prior to that, Ms. Hou suffered from various illnesses. After the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong in July 1999, the local police often harassed Ms. Hou and her husband at home. Out of fear, Ms. Hou gave up the practice, and her health deteriorated. She resumed the practice a few years later.
Police officers from the Xingfang Police Station arrested Ms. Hou and her husband for distributing Falun Gong informational brochures on June 12, 2018. They were later secretly taken away by officers from the Fangzheng County Domestic Security Division. Three police officers also ransacked their home.
Their children learned of their arrest and called the police station and the county Domestic Security Division. The team leader of the Domestic Security Division said the couple would be detained for 15 days, but refused to tell them at which detention center they were being held, or how they could contact their parents.
Ms. Hou is being held in the Harbin City No. 2 Detention Center. Her case was sent to the Yilan County Procuratorate on August 15, 2018. Her sister-in-law, who is illiterate, signed an unknown document from the police.
Her attorney was not allowed to read his client's case file at the Procuratorate. The case was handed over to Yilan County Court on September 5, 2018.