(Minghui.org) Many Falun Gong practitioners are now exercising their legal right to sue Jiang Zemin for launching the persecution of Falun Gong and causing them great harm and tremendous suffering during the past 16 years. The momentum of this new wave of lawsuits against the former Chinese dictator is on the rise.
The Minghui website receives copies of criminal complaints against Jiang from many practitioners daily. In this report, we present a snapshot of some of the practitioners whose copies of lawsuits were received by Minghui on September 12-13, 2015.
These lawsuits are mailed to the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate, which are required to process all criminal complaints filed by citizens, as of a recent ruling by the Supreme People's Court.
Most of the practitioners in this report were repeatedly arrested, had their homes ransacked, and were detained or imprisoned. Two practitioners were tortured to death for refusing to give up Falun Gong. The cases discuss torture, brainwashing, imprisonment, forced labor, and financial difficulties.
In particular, one woman filed a complaint for the wrongful death of her husband from torture at the age of 45. Detention center guards first claimed that he had committed suicide, and then that he died from a heart attack. Officials had his body cremated without consent from his family.
Another practitioner who was beaten to death by township government officials is survived by his parents, wife, two daughters, and four siblings.
Case 1: Mr. Song Wanxue (宋万学)
Profession: Copper miner, Huangshi City Nonferrous Metal CompanyHometown: Huangshi City, Hubei ProvinceDate filed: August 2015
Key FactsMr. Song Wanxue was tortured to death in 2001, at the age of 45. His wife filed a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin in August 2015.
She said that her husband was arrested for going to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in October 1999, and was detained in the Huangshi City No. 2 Detention Center for 15 days.
Then, he returned to Beijing in November 2000 and was taken to the same detention center, where he was tortured to death in January 2001. So far, no one had been held accountable for his death.
The detention center called his brother-in-law on January 24, 2001 and claimed that Mr. Song had committed suicide by hitting his head against the wall. Mr. Song's brother and brother-in-law looked at his body at the crematorium. He appeared to have been in the crematorium for some time, as his hair and beard were covered with frost.
They pressed the detention center staff and said it was unlikely that Mr. Song had killed himself, as Falun Gong teachings explicitly forbid practitioners to commit suicide. The guards then claimed that Mr. Song had died from a sudden heart attack, and that his two broken ribs were caused by resuscitation efforts.
With Mr. Song's death, his family had lost the sole breadwinner and experienced financial difficulties.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
Case 2: Mr. Wang Xingtian (王兴田)
Profession: FarmerHometown: Nanqizhuang village, Dayang Town, Ningjin County, Xingtai City, Hebei ProvinceDate filed: July 14, 2015
Key FactsMr. Wang was beaten to death on March 25, 2000 by Dayang Township government officials, at the age of 43. Mr. Wang is survived by his parents, wife, two daughters, two brothers, and two sisters.
Government officials first demanded that Mr. Wang renounce his belief in Falun Gong and pay a fine, which he refused. For that, he was brutally beaten, and the head of Beiquanli Township threatened to beat him to death.
His family heard him being whipped with a belt in the interrogation room. They saw the broken leather belt on the ground after the door was opened. Mr. Wang had vomited, and the guards forced him to cover the vomit with soil from the outside. They then continued to beat him with metal rods, punctured his skull, and injured his entire body.
The township officials demanded 100 yuan before they released Mr. Wang. He was already dead by the time he was examined by the village doctor.
The family took his body back to the township building, where officials cremated his body without the family's consent. They requested an investigation into his death by the Ningjin County Procuratorate, but did not receive a response from that office.
In 2014, Mr. Wang’s siblings filed a wrongful death complaint with the Ningjin County Procuratorate and the Intermediate Court in Hebei Province. The complaint was ignored.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
Case 3: Ms. Wang Junying (王俊英)
Profession: Not knownHometown: Jiaozuo City, Hebei ProvinceDate filed: June 30, 2015
Key FactsMs. Wang Junying filed her legal complaint against Jiang Zemin on June 30, 2015.
She was arrested numerous times, detained three times, imprisoned for six-and-a-half years, and held in a forced labor camp for two-and-a-half years. She was tortured, her husband divorced her, and she was forced to undergo brainwashing several times.
Because of the Chinese regime's guilt-by-association policy, the authorities did not spare her family: they were not allowed to join the army or be hired into desirable jobs.
Ms. Wang was illegally detained for one month in the fall of 1999, and again at the end of 2000, for going to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong and for raising awareness of the persecution in public.
In the Shibalihe Forced Labor Camp, guards assigned drug addicts to monitor her. They used different methods to have her give up Falun Gong, including torture and brainwashing. Torture methods included binding her in painful positions like “Roast Whole Lamb,” putting her in “Confining Clothes,” and solitary confinement.
The “Confining Clothes” are put on from the front and tightened in the back. The sleeves are about 25 cm long, with a ribbon attached to each end. They tighten whenever the victim moves. This form of torture can cause fractures in the shoulders, wrists, elbows, or spine, and can even cause death.
After she was released from Shibalihe, agents from the Jiaozuo City 610 Office and Xinhua Local Police Station held her in the Police Academy of Jiaozuo City, where she was subjected to brainwashing and deprived of sleep.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
Case 4: Dr. Gao Yanjie (高艳杰)
Profession: Medical DoctorHometown: Fuyu City, Jilin ProvinceDate filed: August 1, 2015
Key factsSince the onset of the persecution in 1999, Dr. Gao was arrested several times, detained three times, and forced to undergo brainwashing twice.
She was monitored at her clinic by the township's political head, local police officers, as well as the neighborhood association head, to prevent her from going to Beijing to protest the persecution of Falun Gong.
The local police station claimed that she violated a law that banned gatherings of three or more people in September 1999. She was arrested and interrogated, but refused to give her name. She was detained for over two weeks, had to stand facing the wall for 24 hours, and deprived of food, water and sleep.
In the Pingshan County Detention Center in Hebei Province, she was tortured and given little food. She was held for more than 10 days in a run-down cell with no bed or any other furniture.
On April 25, 2001, she was arrested for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. Police ransacked her apartment twice and extorted several thousand yuan from her family. She managed to escape from the police station, went into hiding, and closed her clinic for one year.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
Profession: UnknownHometown: Binchuan County inside Dali Autonomous Prefecture of the Bai Ethnic Minority, Yunnan ProvinceDate filed: September 9, 2015
Key FactsMr. Zou Yongfeng filed a criminal complaint on behalf of his mother Ms. Liu Guohua, who is incarcerated in the Yunnan Province No. 2 Women’s Prison. Ms. Liu appeared battered and told her son that she had been injected with unknown drugs.
Ms. Liu was arrested on July 24, 2012 after telling her neighbors and friends about Falun Gong and the persecution. On the day of her arrest, over a dozen policemen and agents from the Binchuan County 610 Office ransacked her home and confiscated her personal belongings.
The Binchuan County Court tried her on January 24, 2013. Her defense lawyer pleaded not guilty on her behalf and argued that her practicing Falun Gong did not violate any law. The judge sentenced her to three-and-a-half-year in prison, but did not notify her lawyer. Her family found out the verdict six months after her sentencing.
The family contacted a number of government agencies and departments, but they refused to accept the family's appeal letter and gave them the runaround. Finally, the provincial justice minister accepted her letter, but did not respond.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
Case 6: Ms. Li Guiying (李桂英)
Profession: Not knownHometown: Jinchang City, Gansu ProvinceDate filed: May 22, 2015
Key FactsMs. Li Guiying was arrested in Beijing in 1999 for protesting the persecution of Falun Gong and held at the Qianmen Police Station. She was deprived of food for almost two weeks.
Ms. Li was transferred to the Jinchang City Drug Rehabilitation Center, where she was held for over a month. Then, she was given two years of forced labor at the Gansu Provincial No. 1 Forced Labor Camp. However the camp refused to accept her because of her high blood pressure.
She was arrested again on January 2, 2001. Police ransacked her family restaurant and seized, among other items, all of the money in the cash register. She was held in the Jinchang City Detention Center for a month.
Ms. Li was also detained in the Jinchang City National Security Bureau building. Her arms were cuffed behind her back to an iron chair. She was interrogated for a month and deprived of sleep.
The authorities took her to a forced labor camp, which refused to accept her after she failed a physical exam. The officials extorted 2,000 yuan before they released her on medical parole.
The National Security Bureau set up surveillance cameras around her family's restaurant from 2002 to 2003 to monitor her, her family, and customers going in and out of our restaurant.
From May to July 2011, Ms. Li was held in a forced labor camp in a section solely used for brainwashing Falun Gong practitioners.
She was released on July 15, 2011, at the age of 71.
Details of complaint in Chinese language
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.