Young Woman Detained Nearly Three Years for Her Faith

Ms. Li Shuang, a Hebei Province native working in Beijing, has been detained incommunicado for nearly three years for practicing Falun Gong. It was also reported that Ms. Li, who is approximately 30 years old, has developed an unspecified medical condition. Her family is calling on the authorities to release her immediately.

Ms. Li worked at an electronic device company in Beijing. She was stopped and arrested by police while riding a bus at around 6:30 p.m. on August 11, 2019. She has since been held at the Xicheng District Detention Center and denied communication with her family and lawyer.

The police submitted Ms. Li’s case to the Xicheng District Procuratorate with Article 300, the standard “heretic” pretext used to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, despite the fact that religious freedom is protected in Article 36 of the Chinese constitution and other legal contexts. When the prosecutor returned her case, citing insufficient evidence, the police still refused to release her and pressured the prosecutor into forcibly indicting her.

The Xicheng District Court initially scheduled a hearing of the cases against Ms. Li and three other practitioners, Ms. Liu Chun’ai, Mr. Yan Yong, and his wife Ms. Yue Liyong, on August 12, 2020, but canceled it since Mr. Yan apparently had a fever.

Following this, the court judge held a secret hearing of the case on September 22, 2020 without informing their families. It was reported that the prosecutor recommended heavy terms against the practitioners during this hearing.

While Ms. Li is still awaiting verdict, her mother, Ms. Song Shuhua, who was arrested on June 16, 2021 for talking to people about Falun Gong, was sentenced to 1 year, 10 months on February 25, 2022.

Based on an original report by Minghui.org