(Minghui.org) An 83-year-old wheelchair-bound woman was taken away in an ambulance from her home in Kunming City, Yunnan Province on May 9, 2023, by the police who pried open her door. Neither Ms. Gao Qiongxian nor her family had called for any medical assistance.
Ms. Gao was previously sentenced to six years in April 2022 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. She was allowed to postpone serving time due to health reasons. Her family suspected that the police targeted her this time because they intended to put her in jail to serve her prison sentence. At the time of writing, her loved ones haven’t been told where she is being held.
Ms. Gao was arrested around October 27, 2020 with another Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Wang Jin. While Ms. Wang remained detained, Ms. Gao was soon released on 1,000-yuan bail due to her poor health. Shortly after the Xishan District Procuratorate indicted both women in April 2021, the Xishan District Court held a hearing of their cases.
Ms. Gao fell at home in August 2021 and broke her legs. The court scheduled the second hearing in December that year and ordered her to install a camera to attend the hearing virtually, but her family refused.
The judge ruled to put Ms. Gao’s case on hold on December 17. But prosecutor Zhang Li renewed the indictment on December 20, 2021, still trying to press charges against Ms. Gao. Meanwhile, the police and prosecutor harassed her at home several times.
The Xishan District Court held two separate trials for Ms. Gao and Ms. Wang on April 19, 2022. The judge sentenced Ms. Gao to six years with a 13,000-yuan fine and Ms. Wang to three years with a 5,000-yuan fine. Due to Ms. Gao’s health condition, the authorities didn’t immediately take her back into custody. It remains to be confirmed whether she was indeed imprisoned after her arrest in May 2023.
This is not the first time that Ms. Gao has been targeted for her faith. She was first arrested in July 2004 and given three years of forced labor. Upon being released in 2007, she resumed her efforts of informing the public of the persecution. She was arrested again in 2016 and sentenced to two years with three years probation on August 29, 2017.
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