(Minghui.org) As Ms. An Shunlian refused to stand trial on April 10, 2024 for her faith in Falun Gong, the local court scheduled another hearing of her case for July 9, 2024. She again said no to the court order and it was not clear whether she was forcibly taken to attend the hearing (if it took place as scheduled).
This is not the first time that Ms. An, a 76-year-old resident of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, has been targeted for her faith. She was previously given two years of forced labor in 2007, sentenced to one year with two years probation in 2007, and received two years with two years probation in 2020.
Her later persecution stemmed from a conversation she had with a man outside of a hospital on August 10, 2023, upon noticing two crutches next to him. She told the man, who struggled to recover from his leg injuries from six months ago, that she suffered comminuted fracture in her right leg in a car accident in 2004, but she quickly recovered by reciting the auspicious phrases “Falun Dafa is good; Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good.”
The man appeared to be frightened when she mentioned Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) and asked Ms. An to leave. Knowing that he was deceived by the communist regime’s slanderous propaganda against Falun Gong, Ms. An didn’t argue with him and left. In less than five minutes, she was arrested by four officers, who also confiscated her purse.
After the Kunming City Detention Center refused to admit Ms. An due to failure to pass the physical exam, she was released on one-year house arrest the next morning.
The police informed Ms. An on January 18, 2024 that they submitted her case to the Xishan District Procuratorate and planned to prosecute her.
Ms. An picked up her indictment at the Xishan District Court on March 20, 2024. But as she was experiencing severe pain in her legs and couldn’t walk, the judge in charge of her case said that he would send the police to take her to the court on April 10 for a scheduled hearing. It’s not clear whether the hearing took place.
On July 2, 2024, the police extended Ms. An’s house arrest for another six months. She recently received another subpoena from the court regarding a hearing scheduled for July 9. She refused to sign it and insisted that she wouldn’t comply because she didn’t violate any law by practicing her faith or telling people about it. It remains to be confirmed whether the hearing took place.
Related Reports:
76-Year-Old Woman Faces Prosecution for Telling a Man about the Health Benefits of Her Faith
76-Year-Old Yunnan Woman Placed Under House Arrest for Telling a Man “Falun Dafa Is Good”
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