Elderly Falun Gong Practitioner Ms. Chen Hongzhou Sent to Ziyang Brainwashing Centre

On May 25th, 2012, more than twenty people from Lu County Court of Sichuan Province, the Procuratorate and Police Department attempted to sentence Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Chen Hongzhou, who was imprisoned at Erehu Brainwashing Centre in Ziyang.

Ms. Chen's family received a phone call from Tang, one of the officers in charge at Erehu Brainwashing Centre, around noon on May 25th, 2012. Tang said Ms. Chen would be sentenced on the same day. Ms. Chen's family member said they hadn't received any court trial notice, it was too late to go to Ziyang that day and they would have to go to Ziyang the next day.

When several of Ms. Chen's family members arrived at the brainwashing centre in Ziyang the next morning, Tang told them more than twenty people from Lu County Court of Sichuan Province, Procuratorate and Police Department attempted to sentence her to prison the day before. Tang told them that it was still possible to “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] Ms. Chen, and asked the court to give her another chance, so the court didn't sentence her right away.

A trial verdict requires going through legal procedures. However, the court had never given Ms. Chen any indictment, nor was she notified of her right to hire an attorney. Her family wasn't notified to attend any trial. But the court attempted to sentence Ms. Chen to a brainwashing centre.

Ms. Chen is in her seventies. She had planned to visit her daughter on April 26th, 2012, but when she didn't show up her daughter called her. Ms. Chen was barely able to say the words, “I was arrested,” before the call was cut off. When her daughter called again, a man answered the phone and said, “Nothing serious happened. I just need to talk to her. Nothing was taken away from her.” It turned out that Ms. Chen was arrested as soon as she got off the bus at Gaoba Bus Station. On the afternoon of April 26th, her daughter received a phone call saying her mother had been sent to Ziyang for “re-education.”

Ms. Chen has been imprisoned and persecuted in Erehu Brainwashing Centre in Ziyang since April. Two people were hired from Baozang community of Qifeng Township, Lu County, to “take care of” Ms. Chen in the brainwashing centre. They came back with the latest news that Ms. Chen would be sent to Chengdu for further imprisonment.