(Minghui.org) The lawyer representing a Falun Gong practitioner in Tongjiang City, Heilongjiang Province has filed two complaints against a local detention center for denying his visitation of his client.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Police arrested Ms. Mou Tianju on August 1, 2019 in a sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. Officers ransacked her home and confiscated many of her personal belongings, including her car. They took her to Jiamusi City Detention Center (Ms. Mou's hometown of Tongjiang is under the administration of Jiamusi, which is about 115 miles away).
Ms. Mou's family hired lawyer Ji Zhongjiu to represent her. Ji traveled more than 1,800 miles from his office in Hangzhou City, Zhejiang Province to Jiamusi to visit Ms. Mou on August 29, 2019, only to be denied visitation. The detention center authorities claimed that Ms. Mou's case was special and that the lawyer had to register his representation of Ms. Mou at the 610 Office within Jiamusi City Police Department before they could allow him to visit Ms. Mou.
The lawyer refused to comply, as this requirement had no legal basis (the 610 Office itself is an extralegal agency created specifically to persecute Falun Gong). He made another attempt the next day to visit Ms. Mou, but still to no avail.
Upon returning to Hangzhou, the lawyer submitted another formal request to the detention center on September 2, demanding to meet with his client. Having received no response after a week, lawyer Ji filed an administrative complaint on September 9 with Jiaoqu Court in Jiamusi against the detention center for blocking his visitation. He also requested that the detention center compensate him 2,148 yuan in travel expenses, 10,000 yuan for loss of his working time, and his litigation fee.
Qiaoqu Court received his complaint on September 16 but refused to accept it three days later, claiming that it was legitimate for the police and detention center to deny his visitation and that the court didn't have the administrative jurisdiction over the issue.
Lawyer Ji has appealed the decision and filed another complaint with Jiamusi City Intermediate Court.