Church-run kindergarten director released after serving two-year prison sentence

China Aid
By Rachel Ritchie

(Liuzhou, Guangxi—Feb. 17, 2016) The director of a church-run kindergarten in China’s southern Guangxi was released from prison today after serving two years for “engaging in illegal business operations.”

Cheng Jie, the director of the Hualin Foreign Language Experimental Kindergarten, was released today and was picked up from the prison by her husband and two sons.

Liuzhou authorities detained Cheng from the school on Feb. 18, 2014. Guangxi officials crossed the border into the neighboring Guangdong province on June 24, 2014, and detained Huang Qiurui, the elder of Guangzhou’s Liangren Church, which founded Hualin Kindergarten. Along with Huang, authorities detained Li Jiatao, a Liangren Church member, and Fang Bin, a man contracted to print textbooks for the school.

Cheng Jie’s two sons, pictured, and her husband picked Cheng
up from prison following her release on Feb. 17, 2016.
(Photo: China Aid)

Officials alleged that all four had engaged in “illegal business operations” by printing character-education textbooks without approval without government approval and then selling the books rather than using them solely for internal use.

The lawyer defending the four detainees countered that the books were sold for an amount that only allowed the Kindergarten to break even for printing costs and that authorities were targeting the school because it was founded by a church.

Cheng, Huang, and Li were convicted and sentenced to two years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of 5,000 Yuan (U.S. $765) each. Fang was sentenced to a year and nine months in prison.


China Aid Media Team
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Church-run kindergarten director released after serving two-year prison sentence

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