(Minghui.org) A Chongqing resident was sentenced to 18 months for her faith in Falun Gong in April 2025, Minghui.org recently learned.
Ms. Zhong Qingju, 63, was arrested on December 3, 2024 after being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. The police raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books, computer, printer, and other personal items. Her family was kept in the dark of her detention location and didn’t find out that she was held at the Kaizhou District Detention Center until late January 2025.
Ms. Zhong’s family didn’t receive any other updates about her case for another ten months. They confirmed in November 2025 that she was tried by the Kaizhou District Court on April 12, 2025 and sentenced to 18 months. But they still don’t know details of her prosecution and where she is currently detained.
Ms. Zhong, born on February 22, 1962, took up Falun Gong in the summer of 1999, weeks before the Chinese Communist Party ordered a nationwide persecution. With her heart condition, pulmonary tuberculosis, arthritis, and many other ailments disappearing only four days after taking up Falun Gong, she remains firm in her faith and has been repeatedly targeted as a result.
Ms. Zhong was arrested in 2007 for talking to people about Falun Gong. She was detained for 15 days. She was arrested again in August 2008 and given one year at the Shimahe Forced Labor Camp in Jiangbei District.
For filing a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin, the former communist regime dictator who ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, Ms. Zhong was arrested another time on September 17, 2015. She was taken to the Kai County Chinese Medicine Hospital for a physical exam. She was first held at the Kaizhou Detention Center and then transferred to the Wanzhou Detention Center.
Ms. Zhong was sentenced to 4.5 years by the Kai County Court on December 17, 2015. She was admitted to the First Division of Chongqing Women’s Prison on March 9, 2016.
In the prison, Ms. Zhong was only allowed to use the restroom three times a day. Inmates Yang Ling, Gao Ying, Liu Yan, Liu Deying, Tian Zhijun, Shu Hong and Wang Xiaoxia were instigated by the guards to monitor her.
After Ms. Zhong was released on September 16, 2019, her husband, son and daughter-in-law were forced by the authorities to monitor her and prevent her from practicing Falun Gong again or talking to people about it. Meanwhile, the local police and residential committee staffers kept coming to harass her.
On May 9, 2021, a person named Zhou Meihua and a police officer knocked on Ms. Zhong’s door and asked her if she was still distributing Falun Gong materials. They slandered the founder of Falun Gong and searched her home for Falun Gong books or related materials.
Another officer, Qi Xiaobing, came to harass Ms. Zhong again a day later. He ordered her to go with him to the Fengle Town, to be deposed by two people from Chongqing municipal government. She went with him. They asked her how she started practicing Falun Gong and whether she still practiced it.
Ms. Zhong began to keep a record of the harassment episodes since the end of 2022. Between then and July 2024, she was harassed 20 times.