Heilongjiang Woman Jailed for Her Faith, Husband Dies Weeks After Her Arrest

(Minghui.org) A 73-year-old resident of Jiagedaqi District, Daxing’anling Prefecture, Heilongjiang Province was sentenced to one and a half years for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999. Ms. Jing Runru was admitted to Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison (located in the capital city, Harbin) on June 7, 2023.

Arrest

Ms. Jing was arrested on October 3, 2022, after being reported by a young man for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong in a residential complex. Two officers from Weidong Police Station in Jiagedaqi District soon came and seized her.

While being interrogated at the police station, Ms. Jing requested to see police chief Yang Jin. Officer Liu Jiaming turned her down. Officer Zhang Ligang from Jiagedaqi District Domestic Security Office shamed her for being arrested multiple times for her faith.

Half an hour later, Liu and Zhang took Ms. Jing to her home and searched everywhere, including her refrigerator. They also ripped off the decorations on her wall. They laid her Falun Gong books on the floor and took pictures of them. They threatened to escalate her case to the provincial government and send the books in as evidence against her.

Ms. Jing, who didn’t know Zhang’s name at the time of the raid, demanded to know his identity. He said, “My name is the Communist Party!”

Zhang and Liu then took Ms. Jing back to Weidong Police Station for another round of interrogation. She refused to sign the interrogation record upon noticing that the police had included in it content smearing Falun Gong and its founder. They proceeded to forcibly collect her biometrics, including her fingerprints.

At around 7 p.m., they took her home again and deceived her husband into writing a guarantee promising to stop her from going out to raise awareness of the persecution of Falun Gong.

Husband Dies Mere Weeks after Her Arrest

When the police persuaded Ms. Jing’s husband to write the aforementioned guarantee, they said they would release her and not arrest her again as long as he wrote the statement. He believed them and did as told.

After the police left, Ms. Jing and her husband discovered a piece of paper tucked underneath an object on a table. It turned out to be a notice of “releasing Jing Runru on bail,” which indicated that the police would continue to seek prosecution of her. It dawned on the couple that the police had never intended to release Ms. Jing unconditionally but that they had never mentioned the notice before they left. There was no expiration date of the bail conditions on the notice as required by law.

Ms. Jing’s husband was terrified at the prospect of his wife being arrested again. He also worried how he, an elderly man in frail health, would be able to support their son (a jobless single father who suffers from amblyopia) and grandson (an elementary school pupil), who live with them.

His health quickly declined, and he had trouble sleeping at night. He was hospitalized for about two weeks before having heart failure right in the hospital. He died shortly afterwards.

Secretly Tried and Sentenced

Ms. Jing learned in January 2023 that the police station had submitted her case to the local procuratorate. She was summoned to the procuratorate on March 10 and ordered to renounce her faith. She refused to comply and was directly taken to the Jiagedaqi District Detention Center.

She was tried on May 15, but her family was not notified of the location of the court hearing. She was later sentenced to one and a half years and transferred to prison on June 7.