(Minghui.org) Two young Falun Gong practitioners are awaiting verdicts two years after they were arrested in their apartment in Beijing.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Ye Linlin, 31, a native of Jinan City, Shandong Province, and Ms. Liu Zixuan, 29, a native of Cangzhou City, Hebei Province, who were working in Beijing, were arrested on the evening of August 7, 2019, by officers from Xisanqi Police Station.
The authorities approved their arrests in late September 2019. They have since been held at the Haidian District Detention Center.
After returning their cases to the police twice for insufficient evidence, the Haidian District Procuratorate indicted them and moved their case to the Haidian District Court.
The court initially scheduled a hearing for September 2020 but postponed it at least five times before finally holding a hearing on February 25, 2021.
During the hearing, the practitioners’ two lawyers entered not-guilty pleas for them. When the lawyers said that Falun Gong has never been criminalized in China, the judge signaled that he couldn’t provide any comment on it and he would have turn to the police for an explanation of why the two women were still arrested for their faith.
In the last two years, the two young women’s families frequented Beijing to seek their release, but to no avail. Ms. Ye’s father often shed tears when talking about her. “Linlin must be suffering a lot in the detention center. I’ve read the [Falun Gong] book she read and know it teaches people to be good. I didn’t see anything wrong with it,” he said.
The worrying father also said that Linlin never wastes money. She always let him use new cellphones and she would use his phone when he got a new one, which is different from the behavior of most people of the younger generations in China. She usually doesn’t spend much money to buy new clothes for herself but never hesitated in buying things for her parents or younger brother.
Ms. Liu’s grandmother, in her 80s, also went to the police station, urging the police to release her. “My granddaughter has lost her mother. She is an excellent student and graduated from the Tianjin University. Why is she going to be sentenced [for her faith]?”
Although the police expressed the wish to help her, they revealed that they couldn’t release her unless she writes a statement to renounce Falun Gong.
Perpetrators’ contact information:
Zhao Fuli (赵福利), police officer of Xisanqi Police Station: +86-10-62930790, +86-13910289571Luo Xi (罗曦), police officer of Xisanqi Police Station: +86-13501351066Chen Qian (陈迁), police officer of Xisanqi Police Station: +86-18901298952Liu Shuang (刘双), police officer of Xisanqi Police Station: +86-18911512456Zhang Yuzhen (张玉振), police officer of Xisanqi Police Station: +86-13910766229Zhao Yi (赵轶), prosecutor of Haidian District Procuratorate: +86-18001165290, +86-10-59554830Tan Yicheng (谭轶城), judge of Haidian District Court: +86-10-62697593
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Category: Accounts of Persecution
