(Minghui.org) Two Weifang City, Shandong Province residents stood trial on June 20, 2022 and were each sentenced to 3.5 years in prison for their faith in Falun Gong. The court prohibited their families from attending the hearing and didn’t summon any of the seven prosecution witnesses to appear in court to accept cross examination.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Arrests and Indictment
Ms. Xu Guizhen and Ms. Wang Shuhua were arrested on the evening of December 7, 2021 for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong. They were later released on bail. The Fangzi District Domestic Security Office submitted their cases to the Kuiwen District Procuratorate, which indicted them and moved their cases to the Kuiwen District Court.
When the two practitioners entered the courtroom on the morning of June 20, two women introduced themselves as court-appointed lawyers to represent them. Knowing that court-appointed lawyers are often instructed by the authorities to enter guilty pleas for Falun Gong practitioners, the practitioners declined their representation.
Defense Statement
Ms. Xu and Ms. Wang were both charged with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” a standard pretext used against Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Xu testified in her own defense and refuted the charge against her. She said that no law criminalizes Falun Gong in China and that neither of the two cult lists published by the Public Security Bureau in 2000 and 2014, respectively, included Falun Gong.
The prosecutor said to her, “In the legal opinion published by the Supreme People’s Court and Supreme People’s Procuratorate in 2017, they called out Falun Gong as a cult.”
“The opinion itself didn’t have any legally binding power, as neither agency is a law-making body in China. The opinion cannot serve as enacted law for law enforcement agencies to act upon.” Ms. Xu also pointed out that the Chinese publication bureau had lifted the ban on Falun Gong books on March 1, 2011, which further indicated that she didn’t violate the law in distributing Falun Gong materials.
She continued to say that she was critically ill when she learned Falun Gong and that she recovered in just one month. She has been healthy since. She said that her recovery wasn’t an isolated case among Falun Gong practitioners, as many others had similar experiences. “Falun Gong saved my life and I must speak up for it. As Falun Gong practitioners, we all strive to be good people. If everyone practiced Falun Gong, our society would be a much better place.”
“Stop talking. We’ve heard enough.” the prosecutor interrupted her.
The prosecutor then read testimony from seven witnesses, but none of them appeared in court to accept cross examination.
Ms. Xu argued that the testimonies were invalid if the witnesses didn’t appear in court in person. Just because they found Falun Gong materials somewhere, it didn’t mean the materials were distributed by her and Ms. Wang. On the other hand, no matter who distributed the materials, it was their freedom of belief and expression, and that was completely protected by the law.
In her final statement, she said, “In China today, the political power is above the law and you are abusing the law to persecute innocent Falun Gong practitioners. When history turns to the next page, all the wrongs would be brought to justice. It would be wise for you not to participate in the persecution now, in order to protect yourself in the future.”
Ms. Wang didn’t prepare a defense statement, but she said that she agreed with everything Ms. Xu said.
The judge sentenced both of them to 3.5 years.
As the practitioners failed the physical examination and were rejected admission by the Changyi Detention Center after the trial, the police allowed them to go home.
The practitioners’ families later learned that the verdicts were determined by the Weifang City Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the 610 Office, two agencies specifically tasked with overseeing the persecution.
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