(Minghui.org) Ms. Chen Jinqing, 72, from Guangzhou City, Guangdong Province, was sentenced to 3.5 years and fined 5,000 yuan in mid-September 2024, after the police claimed she distributed informational materials about Falun Gong.
Ms. Chen began practicing Falun Gong in 1997. She said she might not be alive today if she hadn’t practiced Falun Gong. After the Chinese Communist Party began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, she held firm to her faith and used her spare time to raise awareness about the persecution.
In July 2022, people began reporting that they saw information about Falun Gong near Yanling Road, Tianhe District, which is close to Ms. Chen’s residence. Without any evidence, the police suspected it was Ms. Chen who distributed the materials and began to collect information to frame her.
Around 9 a.m. on February 24, 2023, Lai Ganwen, the director of the Tianhe District Domestic Security Division, and officers Dai Zhihui, He Shufang and Deng Xingwei of the Xinghua Police Station, waited outside Ms. Chen’s home that she shared with her daughter. As soon as her daughter opened the door to go out, they pushed her back inside and raided the place. Both Ms. Chen and her daughter were taken to the Xinghua Police Station for interrogation. Director Lai told Ms. Chen, “If I say you are guilty, then you are guilty!”
Ms. Chen’s daughter was interrogated for a day and forced to give a urine sample for a drug test. The police also performed a physical examination, took her photo and looked to see if she had previous criminal records. She was released later that day. Her deposition and the Falun Gong materials confiscated from their home were later submitted by the police as prosecution evidence against Ms. Chen.
After 37 days at the Tianhe District Detention Center, Ms. Chen’s arrest was approved by the Tianhe District Procuratorate, which later indicted her and moved her case to the Haizhu District Court on July 18, 2023. Haizhu District Court is designated to handle all Falun Gong cases in the region.
Hearing
Judge Wei Xiaoming of the Haizhu District Court held a virtual hearing of Ms. Chen’s case at the Tianhe District Detention Center from 11 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. on November 20, 2023.
The police presented a low-resolution video clip of a short-haired masked woman entering a parking lot near Yueken Road on August 2, 2022. The woman was wearing a white top and a black skirt. She was light on her feet and she looked like someone in her 50s. It’s not clear whether the video showed the woman distributing Falun Gong materials.
Ms. Chen argued that it’s obvious this woman wasn’t her. She is in her 70s and her body type is curvy. She added that there’s nothing wrong with distributing materials about Falun Gong. Whether it’s her or another person, they didn’t violate any laws.
Ms. Chen’s lawyer requested to have her family appear in court and decide if they could recognize the woman in the video. The judge refused his request.
Prosecutor Zhao Xiaokai insisted that the woman in the video was Ms. Chen. He recommended a prison sentence of 18 or 21 months.
After the hearing, Tianhe District Police Department officers went to the detention center to depose (secure testimony under oath) Ms. Chen again. They also photographed her and submitted the photos along with the video to the Xinzheng Judicial Appraisal Institute, which concluded that the woman in the video was Ms. Chen. The police then submitted the “new evidence” to the court.
Ms. Chen’s lawyer pointed out that the police had no right to conduct further investigation and gather new evidence as the case was already being tried. Additionally, it was unclear whether the police pressured the appraisal agency to reach their desired conclusion.
While the appraisal agency claimed that the facial features, including forehead, eyes, and nose, of the woman in the video mostly matched those of Ms. Chen’s, the person in the video was wearing a face mask and her nose couldn’t be seen at all.
With the “new evidence,” the judge arranged a second hearing of Ms. Chen’s case on April 30, 2024 and again rejected her family’s request to attend the trial.
Ms. Chen’s lawyer further pointed out that there were many areas where the police violated the law, including having the wrong address of Ms. Chen’s residence on their search warrant, filling out the search warrant after the fact, and issuing the detention notice, interrogation record, and other case records after the mandatory due dates.
The judge announced in mid-September 2024 that Ms. Chen was sentenced to 3.5 years and fined 5,000 yuan.
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