(Minghui.org) A former middle-school music teacher in Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, stood trial on October 31, 2023, for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Ding Qian, also known as Ding Fadong, was ordered to report to the Wenhua Street Police Station on May 24, 2023. As soon as he left his apartment building, he was arrested by Wang Hao, director of the Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office. Wang raided his home and took him to the Wuzhong City Detention Center, where he remains. Qingtongxia City is about 30 miles away from Yinchuan City and under the administration of Wuzhong City.
The Qingtongxia City Procuratorate approved Mr. Ding’s arrest on June 7.When his lawyer visited him at the detention center on June 15, he learned that Mr. Ding had a blood pressure reading of 194/149 mmHg, when the normal range is 120/80 mmHg. The police still held him in custody, and he was only given one steamed bun to eat every day.
After the Qingtongxia City Police Department submitted Mr. Ding’s case to the Litong District Procuratorate in Wuzhong City on July 27, prosecutor Wu Meiling barred Mr. Ding’s son, who served as his family defender, from reviewing the case file. On August 24, prosecutor Wu indicted Mr. Ding and moved his case to the Litong District Court.
The court accepted Mr. Ding’s case on August 28 and assigned it to judge Yang Hui. Her assistant Wang claimed that only a higher court could decide whether and when Mr. Ding’s son would be allowed to review his case file when the younger man went to the court to inquire about the case status.
In the persecution of Falun Gong, cases against practitioners are often decided by higher courts and trial judges only act as rubber stamps.
Court Hearing
Mr. Ding appeared in the Litong District Court on October 31, 2023. A lawyer from Beijing entered a not guilty plea for him. His son also defended him and Mr. Ding testified in his own defense as well.
Mr. Ding’s lawyer argued that his client practices Falun Gong to be a good person. The Falun Gong materials confiscated from him were for his personal use and prosecutor Wu failed to demonstrate how the materials or his practicing Falun Gong had allegedly caused any harm to anyone or society at large. Wu responded that the prosecution in Falun Gong cases did not need to prove that the defendants had caused any harm. By law, the burden of proof is always on the prosecution in order to convict a defendant.
The lawyer asked that judge Yang call the prosecution witnesses to the stand to accept cross-examination, but his request was denied. Neither Yang nor Wu explained why no witnesses were present.
Mr. Ding’s son said that no law in China deems Falun Gong a crime. While prosecutor Wu charged his father with “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” she didn’t specify which law’s enforcement was allegedly undermined by his father or how.
He added that it was the police who violated the law by arresting his father and raiding their home, since no officers were in uniform or showed their IDs or a proper search warrant. Because no family members were present during the raid, they couldn’t verify whether the official account of what items were confiscated during the raid was accurate or not.
He also noted that the Qingtongxia Domestic Security Office, which was in charge of his father’s arrest, asked its supervising agency, the Wuzhong City Police Department, to authenticate the confiscated items as cult propaganda materials to be used against him. By law, only independent, third-party forensic agencies are authorized to examine and verify prosecution evidence.
He challenged prosecutor Wu to specify the legal basis used to approve his father’s arrest and to present the confiscated Falun Gong materials in court and explain their connection with his father’s alleged crimes.
He also demanded that the police explain why they turned down the family’s two requests to release Mr. Ding on bail for medical treatment when he had ongoing, dangerously high blood pressure.
Mr. Ding maintained that he didn’t do anything wrong in practicing Falun Gong and living by the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and that anyone who persecutes Falun Gong will one day be brought to justice. He urged the judge to uphold justice and acquit him.
Past Persecution
Mr. Ding used to teach music at a middle school in Qingtongxia City. He was an excellent keyboard player and one of his compositions won an award at a national competition. He began to practice Falun Gong in 1998 and soon recovered from ailments that had plagued him for more than two decades.
After the persecution began a year later, he served four forced labor terms between 1999 and 2013 and was repeatedly tortured. He was released from his last labor camp term in May 2013, only to be arrested again on September 15 that same year. He was sentenced to three years and was brutally tortured in Yinchuan Prison.
For doing the Falun Gong exercises in a park shortly after the persecution began, Mr. Ding was arrested twice, had his home ransacked, and was detained. He was arrested again in July 2000 for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong and detained for 38 days.
His fourth arrest was in late December 2000 for writing an article that exposed the persecution. The Xingqing District Police Department took him to the Ningxia First Forced Labor Camp in Wuzhong City to serve an unknown term. When his family went to visit him, he was emaciated, walked with a limp, and was hunched over. They burst into tears and his sister fainted.
Mr. Ding was arrested again on June 18, 2002, and taken to the Qingtongxia City Detention Center. He was given another three-year term in the Ningxia First Forced Labor Camp.
In the heat of summer, the guards handcuffed him to a utility pole and left him out in the baking sun for hours. He was numb and unable to walk afterwards. He was also forced to work in a brick factory. By the time he was released in 2005, his weight had dropped from 140 pounds to about 80 pounds.
In November 2005, only a few months after his release, he was arrested again and taken to the Yinchuan City Detention Center. The guards held him in solitary confinement and restrained him on a tiger bench for three days. Four inmates took turns monitoring him. There was no heat in the room and it was freezing cold. His hands were cuffed and his feet were shackled to the tiger bench. To prevent him from dying, they force-fed him.
Torture illustration: Tiger bench
The police gave him another year and a half in the labor camp, but because he was unable to walk and his hands were covered with blisters due to the torture in the detention center, the labor camp released him three weeks later.
Due to continued harassment, Mr. Ding was forced to live away from home in early 2008.
While he later returned home and found a job with a property management office, he was arrested again early on May 15, 2011. The police claimed that he had distributed Falun Gong materials and gave him another two years of forced labor.
He was released on May 14, 2013, only to be arrested once more five months later on September 15 while visiting another practitioner Mr. You Haijun. He was sentenced to three years by the Zhongning County Court in June 2014 and was severely tortured in Yinchuan Prison.
Related Reports:
Two Ningxia Province Practitioners Remain Illegally Detained
Award-winning Music Teacher Mr. Ding Fadong and His Friend Mr. You Haijun Illegally Tried
Mr. You Haijun and Mr. Ding Fadong from Ningxia Arrested
Evidence Presented During Trial Against Mr. Ding Qian and Mr. You Haijun Was Fabricated
Award-Winning Music Teacher Arrested Again after Being Held in a Forced Labor Camp Four Times
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