(Minghui.org) It is well known that Falun Gong practitioners have been routinely tortured after being taken into police custody. When a local practitioner was recently arrested, his family immediately retained a lawyer to defend him.
After the lawyer secured proof that his client had been tortured, he filed a complaint with the procuratorate against the Domestic Security police officers involved in torturing his client into “confessing.” The case has now been accepted and registered for investigation.
The complaint was filed in an effort to help stop the persecution of Falun Gong by reminding judicial personnel that persecuting practitioners is illegal and that they will be held accountable.
I hope this case provides an example that fellow practitioners can learn from.
Below are the steps that were followed in filing the complaint.
The lawyer met with his client in the detention center. Seeing the scars on his body and hearing what had been done to him, the lawyer realized that his client had been tortured into confessing.
The practitioner, his family, and the attorney decided to file a complaint against two officers who tortured him, but the practitioner did not know their names.
To find them, the family and the lawyer videoed the conversations they had with everyone involved in the case. After reviewing the video, the practitioner recognized them as Domestic Security officers.
It was very difficult to identify the perpetrators because they had been in plainclothes and used assumed names, so the lawyer decided to file the complaint against all the police officers involved in the case, hoping to find those two people's identities by talking to other officers.
The complaint, with supporting evidence and legal documents, was filed with the procuratorate the next morning. Along with the complaint was a legal opinion “not to approve arrest,” which would result in the case being dismissed.
The procuratorate clerk at first refused to accept the complaint and the legal opinion, claiming that the case had not yet arrived. The lawyer argued that refusal to accept a complaint amounted to a cover-up for crimes and that the clerk would be included in the complaint.
The complaint and the legal opinion were eventually accepted. The lawyer requested that the case be immediately registered for investigation.
The practitioner’s family also sent copies of the complaint to the Discipline Inspection Committee, Public Security Department, and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee.
For a while after the complaint was filed, the lawyer revisited his client at the detention center. He saw the practitioner in a detention center uniform with an assigned number. He was also handcuffed. The lawyer protested to the chief of the facility that what was being done to his client was illegal. The chief ignored him.
The chief also refused to allow the practitioner to accept the clothes the lawyer delivered from his family and the complaint documents.
After failing to reach an agreement with the chief, the lawyer filed a complaint with an on-site prosecutor against the chief for violating the law. The prosecutor agreed to provide a reply the following day.
The lawyer visited the Procuratorate the next morning and realized that his case had not been registered. The director of the Complaints Department tried to stall him, hoping to avoid the process. Worried that the videos and evidence might be destroyed, the lawyer asked him to immediately register the case.
When his request was denied, the lawyer filed a complaint with the Discipline Inspection Group, accusing the director of dereliction of duty.
To press the director to immediately register the case, the lawyer also submitted the complaint with the city Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the city Discipline Inspection Committee that afternoon.
Both committees accepted the document and promised to turn it over to the procuratorate, as they did earlier with the torture complaint.
The lawyer then went to the detention center to see the prosecutor.
The practitioner was treated much better after his lawyer filed the complaint against the detention center chief. He no longer wore inmate clothes or did forced labor. He could do the exercises and recite the Fa teachings.
The prosecutor allowed the practitioner to accept the clothes from his family and the complaint documents from the lawyer.
Before he left, the lawyer emphasized to the prosecutor that it was illegal to handcuff inmates during family or attorney visits. The prosecutor replied that they were trying to improve.
On the way back from the detention center, the lawyer was informed that the Complaint Department director had registered his complaint. The director was polite after the lawyer filed his dereliction of duty complaint. The director offered to take the lawyer to see the person assigned to the case.
The lawyer and the director met with the person working on the case the next day. The case is now under investigation.
According to the lawyer, the complaint will be on record in the police officers' personal files once the case is registered. This will likely impact their annual performance and possibly their job security.
This case not only seeks to protect the practitioner’s rights, but also to prevent other public security personnel from committing such crimes again.
Because of Master’s blessings, the practitioner’s righteous thoughts, the lawyer’s persistence, and support from the family, collecting the evidence and registering the complaint were done in a very short period of time.
Without knowing the facts about Falun Gong, people may think that the practitioners who are persecuted are bad people. We should change our thinking and proactively play the role of plaintiffs instead of defendants. That is also a way to help save people!