(Minghui.org) A Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province resident stood trial on November 2, 2021, for his faith in Falun Gong. The judge blocked Mr. Guo Hongshan’s daughter from representing him in court as a non-lawyer defender and also barred his family from attending the hearing.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Guo, 65, was arrested at home on May 26, 2021, and has been held at the Funing County Detention Center eversince.
The police claimed that they arrested Mr. Guo to follow up on an old case in 2015. Mr. Guo was arrested on November 18, 2015, while making informational materials about Falun Gong with several other practitioners. One practitioner surnamed Zhang tried to escape from the window using a rope, only to fall to her death from the fifth floor.
Mr. Guo failed the physical examination due to a heart condition and was released on bail. He was forced to live away from home for over a year to hide from the police and was frequently harassed after he returned home.
Officers of the Heping Street Police Station submitted his case to the Haigang District Procuratorate in August 2021, and he was indicted in early October.
Mr. Guo’s daughter was informed by the Changli County Court on October 25, 2021, that he was scheduled to appear in court on November 2.
When Mr. Guo’s lawyer went to the court to review his case document on October 27, his daughter also submitted a request to represent him in court. Judge Zhang Qiusheng demanded that she provide a letter from the police to demonstrate her relationship to Mr. Guo. The police, however, refused to issue the letter, with the excuse that she didn’t have any paperwork from the court that justified the need to represent her father.
Mr. Guo’s daughter returned to the court on October 28, requesting to see the legal basis for judge Zhang’s request for the police letter. Zhang said to her, “Don’t talk about the law with me. This is the requirement from our court.”
Mr. Guo’s daughter has filed a complaint against the judge. She vowed to seek justice for her father no matter how long it takes.
Family’s Plight and Wife’s Death from the Persecution
Mr. Guo was laid off by Yaohua Glass Group Corporation in February 2000, following his second arrest for practicing Falun Gong. He was arrested again on May 14, 2001, and later sentenced to ten years.
When his wife, Ms. Sun Yufeng, went to reason with the police and demanded Mr. Guo’s release, the police also arrested her and took her to a mental hospital.
Their daughter was forced to live by herself while the couple was detained. With no income, she was forced to give up the opportunity to attend college, even though she had been admitted. She worked to support her family while taking care of her mother, after she was released.
Ms. Sun was taken to a mental hospital for the second time in 2006. She was tortured in the hospital which further damaged her physical and mental health. She was shocked in an electric chair, given poisonous injections and various unknown medications, and force-fed filthy water.
The two mental hospital incarcerations, which added up to a year in duration, took a toll on Ms. Sun’s health. She passed away in August 2012, one year after Mr. Guo was released from serving the lengthy prison term. She was 56 years old.
After Mr. Guo was released in 2011, he asked Yaohua Glass Group Corporation to reinstate him but was met with rejection.
When Mr. Guo reached the retirement age of 60 in March 2016, he tried to complete his retirement procedure in order to start receiving the pension, but the Yaohua Glass Group Corporation declined to issue the required paperwork.
Related report:
Once Imprisoned for Ten Years, Hebei Man Arrested Again for His Faith
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