(Minghui.org) Seven Longkou City, Shandong Province residents are being prosecuted for their faith, Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
The seven people were among 23 local residents (21 Falun Gong practitioners and two of their family members) arrested around 5 a.m. on May 9, 2023. More than 100 officers from eight police stations in Longkou City were dispatched that day to carry out the group arrest. They deceived the targeted practitioners into opening their doors by claiming to be street committee staffers or downstairs neighbors whose ceilings were leaking.
According to insiders, the Longkou City Domestic Security Office orchestrated the police sweep.
While most of the arrested practitioners were released unconditionally, Ms. Chen Guifang, Ms. Ge Lijuan, and Ms. Jiao Linhui are still held in the Yantai City Detention Center and Mr. Wang Zhoulin is in the Longkou City Detention Center. Mr. Sun Guangjun and Ms. Wang Fengmei were put under house arrest and Ms. Wu Jingkun was released on bail.
Ms. Chen, Ms. Ge, Ms. Jiao, and Mr. Wang had their arrests formally approved in June 2023 and their cases were submitted to the Longkou City Procuratorate on July 26. They were indicted weeks later and their cases were forwarded to the Longkou City Court on August 21. They are now facing trial for practicing their faith.
Ms. Sun, Ms. Wu and Ms. Wang’s cases were submitted to the procuratorate around September 2023 and they face indictment.
Ms. Chen’s, Ms. Ge’s, Ms. Jiao’s, and Mr. Wang’s families all received their formal arrest notices on June 14, 2023. They then went to the Longkou City Domestic Security Office to request that the police revoke the formal arrests and disclose the names, titles, and IDs of all the officers involved in the group arrest.
The four families never received a response to their requests. Every time they visited the Domestic Security office, the police there had various excuses to not address their concerns or they gave them the runaround.
The families then submitted a complaint to the Longkou City Procuratorate and the Longkou City Police Department, against the chief perpetrators at the Domestic Security office, including Lyu Bing (a newly appointed captain), Wang Qi, Zhan Yuren, and Guo Fudui, for violating legal procedures in arresting and detaining their loved ones. Captain Lyu even dispatched agents to some of the practitioners’ hometowns to obtain information about their history of practicing Falun Gong in an attempt to frame them.
After they learned of their complaint, Wang, Zhan, and Guo intimidated the families. They used various tactics, including coercion, deceit, and intimidation to turn the practitioners’ neighbors, friends and colleagues into prosecution witnesses.
Guo even warned prosecutor Wang Fei, who was assigned to the four practitioners’ cases, to not accept the complaint. Wang thus ignored various requests submitted by the practitioners’ families, urging her to drop the cases and to not indict the practitioners.
Wang also refused to meet with the families and kept them in the dark about the practitioners’ case status. She indicted the practitioners after the police submitted the cases to the procuratorate on July 26. The families did not realize that their loved ones had been indicted until they learned that the cases were forwarded to the Longkou City Court on August 21.