(Clearwisdom.net) I hereby use my personal experiences from being locked up in prison to expose the illegality of Jiang regime's trials and detention of Falun Gong practitioners.
Before my arrest I had already heard and seen information about Falun Gong practitioners being arrested without due cause, later being brought to trial and sent to forced labors without proper legal procedures, and being tormented, mistreated and abused during forced labor. But I really could not believe that certain people in any government could be used and manipulated to persecute a group of good people. However, as I was arrested and the "lawsuit" proceeded, having some knowledge of law, I gradually witnessed that this movement against Falun Gong is a pure persecution.
After my arrest, when my case went into the prosecution phase, I made inquiries to related departments through normal channels and urged these people frequently, but didn't get a response. According to the time stipulated in the Criminal Procedure Law, even if the procedure needed for this case would have to include supplementary investigations or even several supplementary investigations, the procedure had obviously exceeded the stipulated time. Inside sources working with these cases told me that all Falun Gong practitioners' cases had been dealt with according to a procedure called "combing three trials into one." No one knows from which criminal procedure law this originated; that is, before the case went through the first trial procedure, it had already gone through the investigation phase and the court's internal assessment in the third trial. In other words, the judgment had in fact already been made and been approved by the intermediate and supreme courts and the prosecutors before the court decision in the first trial was made. From this discovery alone it can be clearly discerned that the lawsuit procedure is illegal, let alone the validity of the case itself and the accuracy of the penalty assigned.
I learned that those practitioners who were imprisoned with me at the same time have all been detained beyond the detention period; that is to say that everyone had been subjected to the same illegal procedure. Seeing such obvious and common violation of law, one can easily judge that this is an illegal act committed tacitly with the authorities' consent. According to Criminal Procedure Law, the judgment is unlawful when the lawsuit procedure is illegal.
After the judgment was made, I appealed by following the stipulated time frame and procedures, but still could not get any reply within the legal time limit--obviously this extended my detention again. In fact, the procedure of "combing three trials into one" mentioned above has clearly sent a message to all: you don't need to appeal, because all departments have accepted the internal judgment of the first trial, which are the courts and prosecution of the second trial. The situation with appeal is the same--this is obviously depriving people of their right to appeal, in violation of the Chinese constitution.
When I was first sent into the "new prisoners' team," all the books we brought along, including the law books, were confiscated. The criminal prisoners, however, were allowed to have these regular books; even books with pornographic contents were rarely prohibited. Once, when the prison held a "Legal Questions & Answers Fair," many prisoners went to pick up forms to apply for legal aid. But when three of us Falun Gong practitioners went to obtain these forms, the prisoner in charge of the forms didn't let us take any. He said, "The chiefs had clearly ordered that it is a prison rule that Falun Gong practitioners are not eligible to apply for legal aid."
When we were sent into the prisoners' teams, all our pen, paper, envelopes and stamps were confiscated. The team chief said, "According to the prison regulations, those who practice Falun Gong can't have pen and paper. If you need to write, you can only write at the specific location, on a certain day of each month; you can't write at any other time!" On the issue of writing letters we were often suppressed other than merely limited. The chiefs often decided whether to permit this, based on whether they were happy or not.
Right after I was sent to the team someone told me privately, "The criminal prisoners are not allowed to talk to you." I thought, "How come one can't talk? Even in the era of white terror, there was no regulation forbidding people to talk!" Surprisingly, two weeks later, a certain chief repeated the order that prisoners were not allowed to talk to Falun Gong practitioners. I went to reason with him right away, "Though the court's judgment of us was unfair, it did not deprive us of the right to talk. Isn't your doing so depriving us of such right?" In such special place as a prison, the words of the guards to the prisoners are authority. This chief explained, "The prison clearly regulates this." Doesn't this violate the law?
Once when I petitioned my case, the appeals department was a one designated by law, but the prison administration seized my petition letter. When I asked for the reason they said, "The content you wrote is against the re-education policies; it attacked the political and legal departments, so it cannot be mailed." The Prison Law states, "No one is allowed to seize an appeals/petition letter with any excuse." They were depriving me of the right of an appeal in a disguised form. When I reasoned with them and expressed my protest, for that I was beaten up out of all reason.
It is so common for the chiefs in Chinese prisons to beat detainees. This is no longer a secret. Further, the chiefs together with prisoners beat the detainees. Once, because a practitioner practiced the exercises at night, a chief and two prisoners were called in before closing the door. Three of them hit and kicked that practitioner. Isn't this the guards and prisoners' committing crimes in cahoots? I've reported this to the prison and the prosecuting department according to regular procedures, but received no feedback at all.
At the very beginning of the detention I've heard the saying called, "forcible reformation;" that is, to take the Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to give up practicing to a secret place, physically torturing them in an attempt to force them to give up their belief. This is the most vicious, most inhuman method against Falun Gong practitioners. In the reports I have read, many Falun Gong practitioners being tortured have become disabled or had death occur at this stage.
After a period of time they took me to a secret place. It was called "secret" because they didn't let anyone know my whereabouts. They didn't permit anyone who has nothing to do with brainwashing me to get in touch with me; didn't let my family visit and locked me in a room. In the beginning they took turns to talk to me. From mornings when I got up till night when I was about to sleep, they forced me to watch TV programs and videotapes slandering Falun Gong and related books. at the intervals, they also attempted to force me to write my reactions after these talks and watching those defaming videos. I wrote down my true understandings. They said, "No! The comprehension is not deep enough! You must improve your understanding!" Then the talk, watching and writing down the understandings had to continue. Of course at the end they were still not satisfied, because what I wrote was based on my truth thoughts.
They realized that I did not at all want to write what they wanted from me, so they cuffed each of my hands to window bars with my hands raised up, forming a cross shape. I asked them from what basis they could treat me this way? The group leader said, "We are the government!" That means, "The government told me to do so."
Maybe they were too bold and fearless; never did they consider the issue of law or humanity at all. They felt what some of their superiors said was simply the law, and what they themselves have said was the law, let alone at the top Jiang having said, "Destroy them physically..."
One day, in order to show that what they did to the practitioners has a legal basis, they took out a copy of regulations from their "superior levels." Most of its contents had already been exposed before; however, there was one particular "outstanding" rule, [the approximate meaning] "If the detained practitioners expose the fact of Falun Going practitioners' being treated unjustly, they can treat that as a crime and punish it with extending the term." That is to say, practitioners were not permitted to tell and expose any unfair treatment; even including practitioners' being tortured to the point of becoming disabled or being tortured to death; and it would be a crime to expose it. Isn't this ridiculous? This happened in Minxi Prison in Fujian Province.
If I had not personally experience this, it would be really difficult to believe that all of these are true events. Judging from my personal experience, it is not difficult to understand why so many practitioners have been so severely tortured to become disabled or have died, because Jiang's regime has never, ever followed the law or abided by law when dealing with Dafa practitioners. His and his cohorts' scofflaw behavior are either intentional or self-serving; this phenomenon is common and the degree of it is severe. If this kind of intentional, continuous and large scale negative conduct is still not enough to show it is a persecution, then what is a persecution? How much more prove do you need?
July 3, 2004