(Minghui.org) Eighteen Bin County residents were arrested on July 28, 2015, for suing Jiang Zemin. The 17 that were Falun Gong practitioners were detained for 15 days. The one non-practitioner was the husband of a practitioner. He was detained for 10 days.
The arrests were made by Ningyuan Town government personnel and Bin County police. The police did not send the families of those arrested “Administrative Penalty Notices,” nor did they have any arrest warrants for the detainees. The police also failed to provide a “proof of detention served” document at the time of their release.
Eight of the practitioners then two hired lawyers to defend their constitutional rights.
The eight plaintiffs and their lawyers, Ren Quanniu and Wang Lei, arrived at the Bin County Police Department on September 15. After the plaintiffs and lawyers explained the nature of their case, officer Hou Jinghui called the Law Enforcement Section. Although Hou tried to get them the answers they needed, his superiors told him to send the lawyers on their way.
The plaintiffs and their attorneys then went to the Harbin Police Department to file an appeal. Officer Yi from the Law Enforcement Section received the group. After he reviewed the files and the lawyers’ certificates, he seemed very reluctant to continue the conversation. After the lawyers explained that their request was within the plaintiffs’ legal rights, Yi ended the conversation and left the office.
The lawyers indicated that they would come back the next day to continue the process. If the Harbin City police refuse to cooperate, they said, they planned to visit the next agency up the food chain—the Heilongjiang Province Police Station.
According to the lawyers, the Bin County police face the following dilemma: If they had had arrest warrants, they could not defend their actions in subsequent appeals. If they could not provide the arrest warrants, their arrests would have been illegal. In the attorneys' opinion, the Harbin Police Department is aware of this and consequently refused to accept responsibility for moving the case forward.
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