Chen Zhenping: Persecuted in China for her religious beliefs – A Call for Action
Amnesty International Canada
Chen Zhenping’s Story
Chen Zhenping is an architect and Falun Gong practitioner. Authorities detained her without any warrant on 9 July 2008 at her home in Zhengzhou, Henan Province. The charge against her of “using a heretical organization to subvert the law” resulted in an 8-year prison term. In Henan Provincial Women’s prison, she has endured regular beatings, electric shocks and forced injections of drugs.
Chen’s eldest daughter Jin Zhaoyu – pictured with her above – describes her mother’s experience:
We have had no information about our mother since November 2009, when a former prisoner in the same prison as my mother was released and told us about her condition. The news was terrible. She had been tied to a bed, beaten and force-fed drugs. This former prisoner often heard her crying out, shouting she did not want to be injected with drugs. She was often not allowed to go to the bathroom, nor to shower.
Not being able to get any information about our mother since then, I often feel that she has already died. Otherwise, why wouldn’t we be able to get some information about her? My anguish is enormous.”
Amnesty International has documented particularly severe treatment in detention of Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to recant their beliefs. The severity of the treatment often intensifies until they relent. During her previous incarcerations Chen Zhenping consistently refused to renounce her beliefs.
Amnesty International is also concerned that Chen Zhenping’s lawyer has not been allowed to see her or to provide her with legal assistance. She may have been tried without ever having been questioned. The family was informed about the trial only after it had taken place.
Please write to the President of China, Hu Jintao. Ask him to release Chen Zhenping immediately and unconditionally, as she has been imprisoned solely on the basis of her religious beliefs.
To write to President Hu or to sign a petition to help save Chen Zhenping, please click on this link: Original Amnesty International article
Originally posted on this website on August 21, 2012. Reposted on Sept 06. 2012, to help keep attention on the case.