(Minghui.org) Three women in Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, were tried in February 2023 for their faith in Falun Gong. Ms. Chen Xue and Ms. Huang Bixian’s lawyers entered not-guilty pleas for them. Ms. Weng Meichai’s husband hired a lawyer for her but specifically told the lawyer to plead “guilty” on her behalf, even though she herself asked to plead “not guilty.”
Ms. Chen and Ms. Huang’s lawyers’ defense statements helped the practitioners’ family members understand that practicing Falun Gong doesn’t violate the law and that it was the authorities who abused the law in persecuting their loved ones.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Arrests and Wrongful Charges
Ms. Chen, a teacher at Fujian Institute of Information Engineering; Ms. Huang; Ms. Huang’s sister; and their cousin Ms. Weng were arrested on the evening of June 18, 2022. Ms. Huang’s sister was released the evening after the police interrogated her, while the other three practitioners were held in Minqing Detention Center. Their arrests were approved in early July.
The recent ordeal of Ms. Huang and Ms. Weng, both in their 50s, stemmed from their earlier arrests on November 21, 2019, after being reported for talking to people about Falun Gong near a community center. Before Ms. Weng was released five days later, Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) agents forced her to sign a piece of blank paper, threatening to detain her for ten days if she didn’t comply.
Ms. Huang was given 15 days of administrative detention, but the police didn’t provide any formal notice of the detention. When her term was up on December 6, 2019, the police took her to a secret detention facility located in a senior center without informing her family. She was monitored by two people around the clock. The police ordered her to sign a statement to renounce Falun Gong and to step on a photo of Falun Gong’s founder. They also threatened to sentence her to three years if she didn’t give up Falun Gong.
When Ms. Huang’s family went to the senior center to pick her up ten days later, the PLAC at first refused to release her but later relented due to her family’s insistence.
Claiming they needed to finish “processing” Ms. Huang and Ms. Weng, the police arrested them again on June 18, 2022.
Ms. Chen was targeted because the police alleged that she was reported for distributing copies of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party in an apartment complex in October 2021. The man who reported her claimed that after he found the book outside his door, he went around his apartment building and collected 17 more copies of the book. He said that he saw Ms. Chen in a video recorded by another resident’s surveillance camera and then reported her.
The police combined all three practitioners’ cases into one and submitted it to the Mawei District Procuratorate in October 2022. Prosecutor Zheng Tiansen indicted them and moved the case to the Mawei District Court. Judge Li Nan was assigned to handle it.
First Hearing
The court originally scheduled a hearing for January 30, 2023. Ms. Huang’s lawyer protested, pointing out that the judge delivered her indictment the day before the court date, when by law it should have been delivered ten days before. The judge agreed to cancel the hearing and rescheduled it for February 17.
During the hearing Ms. Chen testified that she had never gone to the apartment complex the police alleged she did, that her father was hospitalized in October 2021 for cancer treatment, and that she had spent most of her time caring for him.
Her lawyer, who entered a not guilty plea for her, pointed out that the police failed to provide a time stamp on the surveillance video or video clips of Ms. Chen allegedly entering the complex, which there was no solid evidence that it was she who had distributed copies of the Nine Commentaries. More importantly, the person who reported her failed to appear in court to accept cross-examination, which further shook his credibility. The prosecutor had no reply.
Ms. Chen added that she took up Falun Gong in 1996 when she was lost and confused about life. She thanked Falun Gong for showing her the true meaning and purpose of life and leading her on a spiritual path.
Ms. Huang and Ms. Weng also testified how they benefitted from practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Huang said that she used to suffer from many health problems. She had a severe hunchback, which made her look like she was in her 50s when she was only in her 30s. One of her neighbors told her about Falun Gong, and she soon recovered by doing the exercises. When she had conflicts, she reminded herself of Falun Gong’s teaching to not fight back when being taken advantage of and also considered things from others’ perspective. At home, she was a good wife and mother. She didn’t know how she could be considered a criminal for practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Weng testified that she used to suffer from severe depression. She tried to commit suicide more than once and needed pills to fall asleep. After learning Falun Gong, she no longer had trouble sleeping and her depression was gone. She took on many household chores and looked younger.
After months of abuse in custody following her latest arrest, Ms. Weng’s health declined and some of her ailments relapsed. Her face was pale and her legs shook during the hearing.
In addition to the practitioners’ own defense statements, Ms. Chen and Ms. Huang’s lawyers pled not guilty on their behalf.
The lawyers said that the police failed to demonstrate their case document and only filled out the search warrant during the raid. While officer Lin Chengquan actually worked for the Gulou District Domestic Security Office, he claimed that he was from the Hongshan Police Station, likely to hide his identity to avoid being held accountable for participating in the persecution in the future.
The lawyers added that no law in China has ever deemed Falun Gong a crime or identified it as a cult. In point of fact, the national publication bureau had lifted the ban on Falun Gong books in 2011. The practitioners didn’t violate any law by owning or distributing Falun Gong materials. Their distributing those materials or talking to people about Falun Gong didn’t cause any harm to society or any individual, let alone undermine law enforcement.
The lawyers’ defense clarified the misunderstanding Ms. Weng’s husband had about Falun Gong. Because of that misunderstanding, he specifically told the lawyer he’d hired to enter a guilty plea for Ms. Weng. He said after the hearing that he realized that Falun Gong was unjustly targeted.
Second Hearing
The second hearing was held on February 23. Ms. Huang and Ms. Chen’s lawyers reiterated that the police violated the law in handling their cases, including not including the time stamp and the video clips and not presenting search warrants while raiding the practitioners’ homes. The police also fabricated the practitioners’ arrest locations, claiming that they were arrested out in public when they were actually arrested at home.
The police attempted to charge Ms. Chen with “organizing and using a cult to undermine law enforcement.” But without evidence to support that charge, they changed it to “using a cult to undermine law enforcement.”
The lawyers pointed out that the practitioners raised awareness about the persecution on their own initiative, without going through any organization. Furthermore, Ms. Weng and Ms. Huang’s cases had nothing to do with Ms. Chen’s, but the police combined their cases in order to claim that their actions were organized.
The lawyers emphasized again that no law in China has ever deemed Falun Gong or identified it as a cult, as well as the fact that the national publication bureau lifted the ban on Falun Gong books in 2011.
Unable to refute the lawyers, the prosecutor kept flipping through the case document, without saying a word.
The lawyers’ defense encouraged the practitioners’ family members and helped them see more clearly that the persecution is illegal.
In their final statements, Ms. Chen said that practicing Falun Gong is her personal spiritual belief and that the law should only prosecute one’s actions, not one’s thoughts.
Ms. Weng said she didn’t do anything wrong but was hoping to stay fit by practicing Falun Gong. She demanded an acquittal.
Ms. Huang said that she struggled to raise her three children. Her youngest son is still in elementary school and needs her care.
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