(Minghui.org) Five Duyun City, Guizhou Province residents stood trial in late 2024 for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Fu Youyan, in her 40s, Ms. Chen Lian, around 80, Ms. Yang Zaiqiong, Ms. Wen Yin, and Ms. Huang Yuqing (the latter three all in their 60s) were arrested together in late December 2024 and indicted by prosecutor Zhang Shijuan of the Duyun City Procuratorate. Judges Ran Qiwu and Liu Hongying of the Duyun City Court presided over the joint trial, which had four hearings totaling eight days in August, October, and December 2024.
The five practitioners are currently held at the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Detention Center awaiting verdicts. Duyun is the capital city of the Prefecture.
During the trial, the practitioners testified against the police and the prosecutor for violating legal procedure and prosecuting them without legal basis.
Illegal Arrests
The five practitioners’ arrests were triggered by a tipster’s report against Ms. Yang. She used a 20-yuan bill to purchase fruit in 2023 and the fruit vendor reported her to police upon noticing the bill bore the words “Hidden Character Stone in Pingtang County, Guizhou, China” [a stone discovered in June 2002 that had words “The Chinese Communist Party Will Perish].
The Duyun City Domestic Security Division identified Ms. Yang after poring over surveillance videos. Instead of arresting her right away, they put her under close surveillance to find out other Falun Gong practitioners that she had contact with. They discovered that she visited Ms. Fu’s beauty salon at the same time every week, together with the same group of other practitioners.
Captain Wu Dejun led his officers to break into Ms. Fu’s beauty salon on December 27, 2023, when Ms. Fu, Ms. Yang, Ms. Chen, Ms. Huang, Ms. Wen, and four other practitioners had just started reading the Falun Gong teachings together.
The police interrogated all nine practitioners and released them that night except for Ms. Fu and Ms. Chen. Ms. Chen soon experienced a medical condition and was taken to a hospital. She was found to have high blood pressure and released at midnight.
Only a few days later, the police took back into custody Ms. Chen, Ms. Yang, Ms. Huang, and Ms. Wen and put them into the Qiannan Buyei and Miao Autonomous Prefecture Detention Center, where Ms. Fu was held.
During the trial, Ms. Yang said that her use of that particular 20-yuan bill was totally lawful as no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong. As such, the police’s act of filing a case against her before making the arrest lacked legal basis. Furthermore, their claim that she was a repeat offender also failed to stand, for the same reason that Falun Gong has been legal since its public introduction in 1992. She was previously arrested in 2016 and sentenced to one and a half years in prison.
Ms. Chen, Ms. Fu, Ms. Huang, and Ms. Wen argued that the police did not have any cases filed against them before the arrests as required by law. The judges summoned captain Wu to court for cross examination. Wu claimed that the case he filed against Ms. Yang stated that “the police had probable cause to arrest Ms. Yang, et al.” The “et al.” was sufficient for the police to arrest others that Ms. Yang had contact with. By law, however, there should be a separate case filed against each specific suspect with his/her name clearly spelled out.
Unlawful Home Raid
Ms. Wen recounted how the police had raided her home without a search warrant. After being arrested at Ms. Fu’s beauty salon, she was first taken to the domestic security division for interrogation. The police then released her on bail. Three officers escorted her home. They demanded to search her home when they arrived. She refused to comply and the police threatened to take her back into custody. She gave in and opened the door. They thus raided her home without a search warrant.
The judges summoned the three officers, including Duan Qilu, Wei Haihua, and Tang Zhaorong, one by one to court. All three claimed that Ms. Wen had taken her own initiative to turn in her Falun Gong books, when in fact they had confiscated the items during the home raid.
Zhang requested an adjournment of the session so that she could verify with the police. After the trial resumed, Zhang admitted that the three officers who raided Ms. Wen’s home had indeed lied and were disciplined.
The three officers did not have any police camera footage to show the first time they were summoned to court because they “forgot to carry their police cam with them when they escorted Ms. Wen home on December 27, 2023.” But the police cam footage they produced during the court hearing was from that day.
The judges ordered them to play the footage, and it was clear that the three officers had confiscated Ms. Wen’s Falun Gong books and that she hadn't turned in the books herself.
Indictment Without Legal Basis
Ms. Wen also had her flash drive confiscated during the home raid. Prosecutor Zhang included the flash drive as prosecution evidence against her, as well. Her lawyer asked Zhang if she had reviewed every item of the hundreds of audio files saved in the flash drive, and she admitted that she had only clicked open a few of them.
The lawyer argued that in order to indict any suspect, the prosecutor must carefully review every piece of prosecution evidence to ensure there’s sufficient legal basis. Zhang, however, didn’t do her homework as required by law. The lawyer then got the judge's permission to play one of the audio files in the flash drive. It was a piece of instrumental music without lyrics.
Zhang couldn’t explain how music like this could be used to prove that Ms. Wen had broken the law. Nonetheless, she counted each minute of each audio file as one piece of prosecution evidence and alleged that the total music time in the flash drive alone was enough to give Ms. Wen at least three years of prison.
Zhang was also unable to address other practitioners’ questioning as to what law they had broken by studying Falun Gong teachings together. She insisted that the five practitioners on trial have all “undermined law enforcement by using a cult organization,” a standard pretext used to frame and sentence Falun Gong practitioners. She cited as legal basis “Article 300 of the Criminal Law,” which stipulates that anyone using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. The People’s Congress, China’s law-making body, however, has never enacted any law to label Falun Gong as a cult.
The five practitioners demanded acquittals and are awaiting verdicts after the fourth hearing in December 2024.
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