62-Year-Old Liaoning Woman Gets 4-Year Prison Term for Her Faith—Details Police, Prosecutor, and Trial Judge Violations
(Minghui.org) A 62-year-old resident of Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, was sentenced to four years on September 24, 2024 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since July 1999. Ms. Tian Liping, who was previously given three years, with three years probation following an earlier arrest in April 2010, is currently appealing her second prison sentence.
Ms. Tian was most recently arrested on March 11, 2024 and indicted on August 16. She stood trial on September 9 and was convicted on September 24. She filed an appeal on September 28 and her case was registered with the Shenyang City Intermediate Court on October 24. Judge Wen Xiaoxia was assigned to the case.
Ms. Tian detailed in her appeal how the police, the prosecutor, and the trial judge violated legal procedures every step of the way during her prosecution. She demanded the illegal conviction be overturned.
Ms. Tian Liping
Arrest
At 9 a.m. on March 11, 2024, more than ten agents from the Heping District Domestic Security Division and its subordinate Changbai Police Station broke into Ms. Tian’s home and confiscated her personal belongings, including her ID, a desktop computer, two laptops, two printers, one CD burner, a portable hard drive, several flash drives and music players, ten Falun Gong books, and one cell phone. Her husband, Mr. Piao Jinghai, also a Falun Gong practitioner, was taken to the Changhai Police Station with her for interrogation.
The couple was targeted for putting up self-adhesive stickers that displayed information about Falun Gong. Mr. Piao said he did this, but emphasized that it was his constitutional right to practice and spread information about Falun Gong. He refused to admit any wrongdoing or sign the interrogation records. Ms. Tian, who was questioned separately, was threatened with more home raids. The police promised to release her if she signed the interrogation records. She believed them and complied, only to realize it was an empty promise.
Ms. Tian and her husband were taken for physical examinations after 7 p.m. that day. Mr. Piao was found to have high blood pressure and high blood sugar. The Heping District Detention Center refused to admit him and the police kept him at the police station overnight. They took him to the Sujiatun Central Hospital for another round of physical examinations the next morning. He was found to have diabetes and heart disease. The police again tried to get him admitted to the same detention center, but he was still denied admission due to his poor health. The police then released him at 2 p.m. on March 12, 2024. They put him under house arrest without telling him and wrote in his wife’s case file that his case was treated as a separate case.
Ms. Tian was also found to have high blood pressure during the physical examination but the police managed to persuade the Shenyang City First Detention Center to accept her. The guards there forced her to take hypertension medications. She saw no improvement in her condition and felt dazed and that her memory had worsened.
Police Extract Confessions and Violate Legal Procedures
The arresting officers did not wear uniforms or show their IDs or a search warrant when they raided Ms. Tian’s home. They also failed to tell her which items they confiscated or issue her a list of the items as required by law.
The police records indicated that they established the case against Ms. Tian at 9 a.m. on March 11, 2024 and searched her home at 8:50 a.m. that day. By law, the police must establish a case with probable cause before raiding a suspect’s home.
After arresting Ms. Tian and her husband, the police failed to issue any arrest or detention notices to their son, Min (alias). Ms. Tian’s case file, however, stated that Min received the arrest and detention notices and signed the paperwork. It was apparent that the police forged Min’s signature. The son also noted numerous discrepancies and fabricated evidence contained in other paperwork, including the case registration form, case filing decision, case source, arrest process, detectives’ report, work report, search warrant, search transcript, confiscation decision, list of confiscated items, and photos of seized items.
Min went to the Changbai Police Station on April 18 but couldn’t find the officers in charge of his mother’s case. He called the police station’s hotline and chief Liu Bin answered the phone. Liu said that he had just been appointed to the chief position three days ago and that he had to consult with the Heping District Domestic Security Division to find out the status of Ms. Tian’s case. He promised to get back to Ms. Min in one week.
Min never heard back from Liu. He then called all the local procuratorates and eventually found out that that the Hunnan District Procuratorate had been assigned to his mother’s case with prosecutor He Mengyao (+86-24-84829859) in charge. He also learned that his mother was issued a formal arrest warrant on March 22.
While Ms. Tian was facing indictment, officer Wang Yueyu deceived Mr. Piao into going to the Changbai Police Station to sign some paperwork in exchange for his wife’s release. He believed them and signed, only to have his signature and testimonial used as evidence against his wife.
After realizing he had been deceived, Mr. Piao wrote a statement to detail how the police misled him to provide evidence incriminating his wife against his will. He declared all his “confessions” and signatures null and void. Ms. Tian herself also submitted a statement to nullify the confessions that she was coerced into making during police interrogation. Both statements, however, weren’t considered in Ms. Tian’s trial as evidence against the police for extracting confessions using threats and deceit.
The couple’s son, Min, received two calls from the police around Ms. Tian’s trial. Officer Wang called from +86-19990037680 on September 13 and officer Li Gang called from +86-15502400915 on September 28, four days after Ms. Tian’s prison sentence. Both urged him to help them get in touch with his father so they could change his house arrest in a criminal case to an administrative detention case. They promised to clear Mr. Piao of all charges if he just reported to their police station to process the relevant paperwork. Officer Li even promised to not enforce the administrative detention given Mr. Piao’s health condition. Min did not fall victim to the police deceit this time, given how his mother was deceived and ended up being sentenced to four years in prison.
Prosecutor Violates Legal Prosecuture
The Shenyang City Domestic Security Division, which oversees the Heping District Domestic Security Division, which oversees the Changhai Police Station, issued authentication of the police-supplied evidence against Ms. Tian. By law, only an independent, third-party forensic agency has the authority to verify and authenticate prosecution evidence.
Prosecutor He, however, accepted the authentication report and indicted Ms. Tian on August 16, 2024. Min hired a lawyer to defend his mother and also applied to be her non-lawyer defender. He submitted Ms. Tian’s power of attorney document, his request to review her case file and visit her, and other relevant documents to prove his mother’s innocence.
Prosecutor He denied Min’s request to review the case file on the grounds that the lawyer was already granted a chance to look over the documents. She added that Ms. Tian’s case concerned national security.
Trial Judge Violates Legal Procedures
Judge Hao Xiaoli (+86-24-84829859, +86-24-84829140, +86-24-84829044) of the Hunnan District Court was assigned to handle Ms. Tian’s case.
Min submitted multiple legal documents to Hao in the days leading up to Ms. Tian’s trial, including his parents’ statements against the police for extracting confessions from them using deceit and threats. He also requested that Hao remove the police-supplied evidence and other inadmissible evidence.
Hao, however, ignored Min’s request. She also rejected him at the beginning of his mother’s trial on September 9, when he requested that both she and prosecutor He be recused from the case given their numerous violations of legal procedures.
Prosecutor He accused Ms. Tian of engaging in anti-CCP and anti-government activities yet failed to present any evidence. After the lawyer pointed out that there is no such crime listed in China’s criminal law, prosecutor He alleged that Ms. Tian violated Article 300 of the criminal law, which states that those using a “cult organization” to undermine the law enforcement should be punished to the fullest extent of the law.
Both Min and the lawyer countered that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. The cult list issued by the government didn’t mention Falun Gong and the ban on Falun Gong publications was lifted years ago. Min pointed out that he submitted documents pertaining to the bogus evidence to judge Hao days before the trial.
The defense demanded that prosecutor He present the actual evidence against Ms. Tian, be it in written, audio, video, or electronic form. While prosecutor He did present nine sets of prosecution evidence (details unknown), they were just statements in writing but no items were presented in court. There was a prosecution witness named Zhang Hao, who allegedly saw Ms. Tian putting up Falun Gong stickers, but he didn’t appear in court for to testify.
Ms. Tian and her husband’s statements against the police weren’t read in court or used as admissible evidence against the police. When her defense lawyer asked to play the hard drive and flash drives confiscated from her home to show no content in them broke any law, judge Hao rejected the request.
Prosecutor He accused Ms. Tian of being a repeat offender given her prior three-year sentence for practicing Falun Gong and recommended that she be given a heavy sentence.
Judge Hao indeed sentenced Ms. Tian to four years on September 28, 2024. Despite the above-mentioned violation of legal procedures on her part, prosecutor He’s part and the police’s part, she stated in the verdict that, “the court cross-referenced all prosecution evidence and found that they corroborated each other and were admissible” and that “the defense statements, however, lacked legal basis and factual support. They should be deemed inadmissible.”