(Minghui.org) A 76-year-old resident of Guiyang City, Guizhou Province appeared in court three times in early 2024 for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Liu Xiulan recounted her trial to a friend on May 6, 2024. The friend, however, has since been unable to get hold of her. It is unclear whether her son, whom she lives with and had been pressured by the authorities to monitor his own mother, took away her phone or whether she has been taken back into custody.
First Hearing
Ms. Liu and her younger son, with whom she lives, went to the Nanming District Court at 9 a.m. on February 22, 2024 as ordered. They were greeted at the court entrance by the court-appointed lawyer, Xue (alias).
Xue read aloud the defense statement and asked Ms. Liu to sign it. Ms. Liu noted that the statements were mostly what she’d said on the phone when Xue called her to discuss the case a few days prior. She refused to sign and Xue did not press her.
They then went inside the courthouse for the trial. Ms. Liu saw the presiding judge accompanied by two judges and a clerk. The prosecutor and the prosecutor’s lawyer (it was unclear why the prosecutor would have a lawyer) were also present.
The presiding judge asked Ms. Liu to verify two pieces of prosecution evidence, one being that she talked to an elementary school student about Falun Gong in the spring of 2022 and the other that she talked to a man, aged around 50, about Falun Gong at an unknown time.
Ms. Liu acknowledged that she did talk to the school pupil about following Falun Gong’s principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance to be a good person. She, however, denied having ever talked to the middle-aged man.
The judge played a video showing Ms. Liu walking on the street with a man behind her, but the footage did not show any interactions between the two. The judge, though, insisted that Ms. Liu’s voice was heard at the end of the video saying, “What I told you is all true,” and that this was proof that she talked to the man about Falun Gong.
Ms. Liu said again that she never talked to the man and she suspected that the voice in the video, said to be hers, could well be a deepfake. She reminded the judge that the police had shown her the video before but failed to produce the witness for cross-examination.
The judge brought up another piece of prosecution evidence, namely, the Falun Gong books and informational materials confiscated from her home. She countered that no law in China has ever criminalized Falun Gong and that the confiscated items were her lawful possessions.
Her court-appointed lawyer then presented the defense statement. Ms. Liu overheard the judge and the prosecutor talking about giving her one or two years in prison, but she couldn’t make out every word they said. They ordered her to sign piles of paperwork, but she refused.
Second Hearing
Ms. Liu and her son were summoned to the court again on March 15, 2024. The same group of judges and prosecutor were present. They again asked her about the same two pieces of evidence: her conversations with the school pupil and the middle-aged man. She reiterated that she never talked to the man. The footage shown during the first hearing never once showed that she turned her head to talk to the man behind her.
The judge still ordered her to sign paperwork, and Ms. Liu again refused.
Third Hearing
Ms. Liu and her son were ordered to the court again on April 2, 2024. The judge played a new video this time. It showed a woman talking to people about Falun Gong in Guanshanhu District, Guiyang City in December 2023. Ms. Liu said the woman shown in the footage was not her and demanded to have the tipster who allegedly reported her appear in court for cross examination.
The judge then declared this video inadmissible in the case, but insisted that the two videos mentioned earlier about Ms. Liu talking to the school pupil and the middle-aged man were still admissible evidence. She again reminded the judge that she never talked to the man.
Futile Police Attempts to Take Ms. Liu into Custody
Ms. Liu’s son received a call from a police officer on the morning of April 11, telling him and his mother to wait for them to come that day. At around 2 p.m., three officers (one male and two females) arrived. They read out aloud an arrest warrant issued by the Shijicheng Police Station before taking Ms. Liu and her son to Jinyang Hospital. The physical examination showed that Ms. Liu had a systolic blood pressure reading of 190 mmHg (a normal range is 120 or lower). The police did not believe she had high blood pressure as she appeared healthy. They had the nurse take her blood pressure again, but it was the same reading.
The police took Ms. Liu to the Sanjiang Detention Center after 6 p.m. that day. After processing her paperwork, they stripped off her clothes and forced her to put on a prison uniform. She and her son were then taken to the Sanjiang Prison. During the required physical examination, she was found to have high blood pressure, lung issues, and diabetes. The prison doctor said they could not admit her and the police took her back to the Sanjiang Detention Center.
The detention center did not dare to take her for fear she might have health issues in their custody, and the police then drove her to the Sanjing Prison again. The prison declined to admit her, but the police managed to have them agree to keep her there for the night.
Ms. Liu firmly refused to be imprisoned, and the police called their supervisors for instructions. Their higher-ups agreed to have her taken back to Guiyang and await further instructions from the court.
The police eventually drove Ms. Liu and her son home around 3 a.m. on April 12, 2024. They didn't bother her again for the next few weeks (at least not as of May 6, when Ms. Liu talked to her friend). But with the friend since losing touch with Ms. Liu, it’s unclear what happened to her after May 6.
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