Why Are Chinese Judges Hostile toward Lawyers that Defend Falun Gong Practitioners?

May 01, 2013 | By a Falun Dafa practitioner in China

(Minghui.org) The Minghui website reported that on April 3, 2013, attorney Wang Quanzhang from the Beijing Zhenbang Law Office defended Mr. Zhu Yanian at the Jingjiang City Court in Jiangsu Province. He reprimanded the police for depriving the elderly Mr. Zhu of sleep for three days and nights, and blowing cold air on him. At the end of the trial, Mr. Wang was taken away and detained for ten days for “talking too loud.”

Similar cases have been reported on the Minghui website. Many of the lawyers that defend Falun Gong practitioners have encountered abusive treatment. China claims to be governing itself according to the rule of law. Then why are Chinese judges so hostile toward attorneys who defend Falun Gong practitioners?

I. Defense Lawyers Make Convincing Arguments about the Illegality of the Persecution of Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)

The CCP began its all out persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999. When the persecution first started, the Communist regime used the forced labor system to arbitrarily arrest practitioners and put them into forced labor camps. Torture and forced brainwashing were used to pressure practitioners into giving up their belief. The illegality of the forced labor system has been condemned both domestically and internationally, so the regime has continued its political campaign against practitioners by using the law as a form of cover. In this way they can control the justice system and the security branches that arrest, prosecute, and sentence Falun Gong practitioners.

Even with all the pressure the regime inflicts, there are still righteous lawyers willing to argue for practitioners. After careful analysis of Chinese law, attorneys have pointed out that the persecution against practitioners for the past 14 years has been entirely illegal. For example, attorney Wang Yonghang wrote an open letter to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Procuratorate, titled “Let’s clean up the disaster caused by our huge mistakes in the past.” He systematically pointed out that cultivating in Falun Gong accords with Chinese law. It is the persecution of Falun Gong that is the crime.

Many lawyers have pointed out during trials that Falun Gong practitioners adhered to the principles of freedom of belief stipulated in the Chinese Constitution. Article 300 of the criminal code states that to prosecute practitioners for “using a heretical organization to undermine the implementation of law” lacked an essential element. For example, the authorities could not specify which laws practitioners were obstructing and what the consequences of their actions would be. In what manner were they obstructing justice? Falun Gong cultivation is the essence of the Chinese traditional culture, and has nothing whatsoever to do with a cult. The persecution conducted by the justice system and the security system under the control of the regime is actually responsible for obstructing justice and causing lasting harm.

It is the regime that is actually obstructing justice. They harm good people under the auspices of the law.

II: Lawyers Arguments Expose the Cruelty of the Persecution by the Justice and Security System

One of the reasons that attorney Wang Quanzhang was detained was because he reminded the judge to be unbiased and not automatically find the practitioner guilty. He pointed out that the illegally detained practitioner Mr. Zhu had been deprived of sleep and had cold air blown on him for a long time.

Another case, which attracted the attention of the Chinese central government and the world media is that of Mr. Wang Xiaodong which occurred in Botou, Cangzhou City, Hebei Province in 2012. Attorneys Cheng Hai and Li Changming were barred from defending Mr. Wang because they exposed that Mr. Wang had been tortured in the detention center. Torture methods used included, electric shock with a manual telephone, forced to stay in a head down-buttock up position, smashed with heavy objects on the hands and feet, burned with a cigarette, and others. The detention center had over 70 methods of torture they used on practitioners.

Gao Zhisheng received the heaviest persecution because he wrote three open letters to Hu Jintao and Wen Jiabao pointing out the illegality of the persecution and the unbelievable atrocity of the tortures implemented.

These attorneys had the courage to expose the crimes of the Communist regime. The lawyers fighting for practitioners’ rights are seen as a thorn in the side by the regime.

III: Chinese Judges Have Become Enforcers in the Persecution of Falun Gong

Although the Chinese Constitution states that the courts should conduct trials independently, the Party has never given up its control of the courts and the judges. For example, the formal documents and business reports of the Supreme Court in 1999, 2002, and 2004, requested that the courts at all levels strengthen the persecution against Falun Gong. Even in “The Supreme Court’s Opinions on Enhancing Jurisprudence Capability and Quality”, a document published in 2005 requested the judges to “be extremely alert to the new situation of Falun Gong’s fight against us utilizing legal measures.” The laws are not enforced and no longer protect the people. The laws are actually used to harm the people and the judges are the enforcers.

IV: Only When the Party Is Destroyed Can Judges Be Independent

Some of the judges involved in the case of attorney Wang Quanzhang knew that they were handling things illegally. Most of them had worked hard for many years to earn the position they currently hold and they have ample knowledge of law. Why then did they knowingly violate the law?

The persecution of Falun Gong violates the law. Because practicing Falun Gong is legal, an illegal organization was formed called the 610 Office to persecute Falun Gong practitioners. This agency was to control and manipulate the justice system and the security system. The Political and Legal Affairs Committee, which is a higher body than the justice system and the security system were used to force and coerce the national security, the police, the courts and the district attorney offices to persecute Falun Gong. They took part in all kinds of criminal activities and openly disregarded the constitution and the law. Because the 610 Office did not abide by the law, the court was compelled to use measures likened to that of thug’s to scare the lawyers.

The judges of the Jingjiang Court behaved pitifully as tools for the Party. They were forced, coerced, or lured in by those with higher authority. They thought that someone was covering their backs and felt they had the power to do anything without being held responsible. What they did not know was that their superiors, the 610 Office and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee, were also just tools that Jiang Zemin was utilizing. Now Jiang has lost all of his power and is dying. He is facing many international lawsuits and the Political and Legal Affairs Committee is also collapsing. What awaits them are the demands for accountability and heavy punishment. As for the local 610 Offices and the justice system and the security organizations at lower levels, they are certainly going to be in a great amount of trouble.

We would like to remind all judges: If you would like to be respected by the people instead of being despised, quit the Party. Knowing the truth about Falun Gong is the guiding light for all judges and other personnel. Escape the control of the Party by making them accountable for their crimes against Falun Gong.

Chinese version available

CATEGORY: Opinion & Perspective

Torture, Beatings, Hard Labor and 16-Hour Workdays at Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin

May 03, 2013 | By a Falun Gong practitioner from China

(Minghui.org) The Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp in Tianjin has brutally persecuted Falun Gong practitioners for the last 14 years. Inmates endure harsh, inhumane conditions, forced to do hard labor for 16 to 17 hours every day. Many would characterize the conditions as “slave labor.”

Falun Gong practitioners suffer additional abuse during and after work hours. They are subjected to relentless brainwashing, forced to watch and listen to propaganda slandering Falun Gong after they finish work. The use of torture has escalated recently, particularly for Falun Gong practitioners.

Brutal Beatings and Depravity

As soon as practitioners arrive at the labor camp, they are subjected to severe beatings. Guards instigate inmates to join in the beatings in attempts to “transform” practitioners.

Some practitioners, such as Mr. Li Guangyuan, were beaten until their ribs were broken. Mr. Li Jie was hit until he couldn’t walk. Another practitioner’s legs were paralyzed as a result of the beatings. Some were beaten to death or injured so badly they died later. More still were shocked with electric batons.

At the bare minimum, the majority of practitioners were had bruises on their faces and open wounds as a result of the abuse. This kind of brutality took place at the No.1 and No.2 Wards in the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp.

Guards at the Ward No.3 have been even more vicious. They gathered newcomers in the “library” for the purpose of beating them in groups, sometimes involving more than 20 practitioners at a time.

Guard Tong Xiuhe orchestrated the proceedings behind the scenes, while inmate Lu Liu directed others to beat the practitioners. Inmate Fan Shigang purposely kicked their private parts.

Practitioner Li Fengkun, who was recently sent to the labor camp, was slapped in the face more than 30 times by one inmate. Mr. Zhang Yong was kicked so hard that he could neither sit nor lie down as a result.

Covering Up Crimes

Ward No.4, associated with the Shuangkou Police Station, has played the key role in deceiving inspectors visiting the labor camp. They enlisted collaborators to fool staff from the Inspection Department who came to investigate claims of abuse submitted by Falun Gong practitioners. As a result, what inspectors saw was not the true picture at all.

Ward No.5 was also involved in the coverup to a great extent. In order to cover up their crimes, staff often transferred practitioners who had been beaten and injured to other wards.

Severe Torture and Abuse

An inmate with surname Mu and others at Ward No. 5 tortured practitioners severely. One time, they carried an elderly practitioner, Mr. Lian Shengchun, to a room with running water. During the freeze of the winter, they stripped him naked and poured cold water on him. Steadfast in his belief, he said to the perpetrators: “I will never change my mind. Is that all you can do? Save yourself from pouring water, I’ll do it myself!” With that, he jumped right into the vat full of cold water. His righteous will shook the torturers so badly that they quickly ran away.

Mr. Li Wanbing had pus on his ankle as a result of long-term slave labor. Inmates used a dirty toothbrush to scrub and infect his wound. His lower leg became dark and swollen. Even so, he was forced to do hard labor every day. When his condition deteriorated, the guards finally took him to a clinic. After his wound eventually healed, he was transferred to Ward No.1 for brainwashing. Under guard Wu Mingxing’s orders, he was forced to stand still for 15 to 16 hours straight, which caused his health to deteriorate once again.

A practitioner with surname Du was put into solitary confinement for a long period of time. Several inmates were assigned to monitor him 24/7. He was handcuffed to the rail of an iron bed and deprived of restroom use. When this practitioner went on a hunger strike to protest the gross mistreatment, he was brutally force-fed by inmates and guards, suffering tremendously.

Mr. Zi Rong from Sichuan Province was also subjected to brutal persecution for upholding his faith in Falun Gong. He was frequently forced to sit in the lotus position for a long time, and was even thrown into a urinal, which caused him to faint. Later on, in order to avoid taking responsibility for his deteriorating condition, the labor camp told his family to take him home.

Detained practitioners were also hung up for several hours, deprived of sleep and forced to put on headphones and listen to content defaming Dafa at maximum volume from early in the morning until midnight. The guards did not allow them to take off the headphones even while eating or using the restroom.

As a result of the torture methods described above, many practitioners felt dizzy and/or nauseous, and some even lost consciousness. These cases only represent only a small portion of the persecution that has taken place in the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp and is still continuing today.

Slave Labor in Toxic Environment

Except for Ward No.4, which is guilty of other crimes, guards at all other wards have used all means possible to exploit prisoners for profit through slave labor.

The Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp mainly makes handmade products. Its forced labor tasks have included gluing paper boxes, stitching flowers and balls, wrapping coils, folding paper, putting together stationary products, etc. All of these activities are conducted in an environment that is very harmful to prisoners’ health.

One example is gluing paper boxes or wooden flowers. Prisoners are forced to use toxic glue of inferior quality. During the process of heating the glue, the poisonous gas generated is directly absorbed; there are no protective measures, such as face masks, offered. As a result, many inmates end up coughing and the skin on their hands peels off.

Exploiting Prisoners for Profit

The tasks that don’t involve many poisonous substances are normally low-profit jobs that were rejected by other places. However, since the labor camp uses slave labor—and thus has no labor costs—they are still profitable enough.

To maximize their profits event further, the labor camp authorities often increase the work quota beyond what most people can endure in a day.

One example was the quota for the balloon workshop–one case per day. This involved making several hundred balloons, which amounted to over 10 hours of work for an experienced worker. Because Falun Gong practitioners helped each other out and worked very diligently, they were able to finish the work a bit early, leaving some time to clean up the workshop. After the guards detected this, however, they increased the quota to one and a half cases per day. Subsequently, it was increased to two cases per day; however, as that was impossible to achieve, the guards eventually brought it back down to one and a half cases.

If the quota were increased for one team, others followed, making it very hard on all of the prisoners involved.

Physically Penalized and Mentally Drained

One inmate from Ward No.1 was putting caps around balloons. In order to finish his task, he had to work day and night. As a result of working long hours, his fingernails fell off, leaving him in a lot of pain. He was then assigned to clean up washrooms, which reflects the guards’ mentality that “even though you can’t work, you still have to work.”

One inmate from Ward No.5 was always unable to finish his tasks, so he was often beaten and penalized. Later, he’d choose to be penalized by having to stand with his body bent at 90 degrees, with his hands on his knees, than participate in slave labor. He had to keep standing in this position throughout the whole workday.

One time, the number of coils prisoners had to wind went from 1,200 to 1,500; later it was increased to 1,800. After deducting six hours for sleep, there was not much time left for eating because one had to finish the work within 17 to 18 hours. The large amount of work plus lack of sleep made the inmates mentally numb. Therefore, this task was also called “psychological coil.”

The same type of psychological torture was applied to stitching work. A large quantity of fabric was placed in front of the prisoner. It was nearly impossible to finish the task. For male inmates who had hardly done any stitching work before, if they were not quick enough, they’d be sworn at and beaten. Many of them were exhausted and often vomited as a result of mental pressure and physical abuse.

Sometimes prisoners sustained injuries, such as deep cuts, in their efforts to move quicker and meet the unreasonable quota assigned to them. They also were not allowed to wash before they ate when they had lead or glue on their hands.

Unscrupulous Greed

Even though they exploited prisoners so much, it still didn’t satisfy the desire of those guards who wanted to procure maximum profits. When guard Tong Xiuhe saw that the profit didn’t reach his expectations, he began to curse people, claiming that if they didn’t earn him enough money, he wouldn’t feed them.

One time, inspectors came to check on the Shuangkou Forced Labor Camp. To hide his crimes, Tong Xiuhe got all of the prisoners together in advance of the visit. “If asked how many hours you work a day, how would you respond?” he inquired of the inmates. One inmate replied with “eight hours;” since this was much shorter than the actual hours worked, he though this would be an acceptable answer. Unexpectedly, he received a beating. Tong Xiuhe said, “Don’t you just work four to five hours a day? You’ve been focusing on studying every day, right? You should answer like that!”

With the crimes of the forced labor camps being widely exposed in international media, we hope that governments and kind people around the world pay attention to this issue and help stop inhuman abuses of the Chinese communist regime.

Chinese version available

CATEGORY: Accounts of Persecution

Ms. Dai Meixia Illegally Tried, Over 300 Villagers Appeal for Her Release

May 03, 2013 | By a Minghui correspondent from Hubei Province, China

(Minghui.org) Ms. Dai Meixia, 42, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Tuzuo Village, Xiaochi Town, Huangmei County, Hubei Province. She has been illegally detained and tortured at a brainwashing center for nearly a year.

After the Chinese communist regime began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, Ms. Dai and her family were forced to move to Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province. They recycled waste to make a living.

During the past decade, Ms. Dai has been severely persecuted for her faith. Her young son has had to grow up without his mother.

Repeatedly Arrested and Tortured

Ms. Dai was repeatedly arrested and tortured by the Hubei and Jiangxi police. She was held in a brainwashing center, where she was beaten, forced to stand still for long periods, not allowed to sleep, force-fed, forced to take unknown drugs, and abused by other means. Her home was ransacked many times, and authorities harassed her and extorted money from her family on numerous occasions.

On the morning of May 10, 2012, Ms. Dai went to a shop near the Jiujiang No. 3 High School. Huang Wei from the Huangmei Police Department and several Jiujiang policemen arrested her there. Ms. Dai was sent to the Hubei Legal System Education Center, which functions as a brainwashing center.

Ms. Dai has been detained there for a year. She has been tortured both physically and mentally. Her parents and parents-in-law have gone to police and the court officials many times to appeal for her release, but to no avail.

Over 300 Villagers Appeal for Ms. Dai’s Release

About 300 local villagers in Huangmei signed a letter to appeal for Ms. Dai’s release. They wrote that she is a kindhearted person who is kind and helpful to her family and neighbors, appealing to the judge to uphold justice and release the innocent Ms. Dai.

The Huangmei County Court held a trial for Ms. Dai Meixia on the morning of March 25, 2013. Two attorneys from Beijing and Guangzhou defended her and requested her release. They argued that it is legal for Ms. Dai to believe in Falun Gong.

During the hearing, a judge suddenly fainted and fell to the floor.

Related articles:

Hubei Province Police Take Ms. Dai Meixia’s Parents Hostage

http://en.minghui.org/emh/articles/2008/9/20/100813.html

Village Officials Request Ms. Dai Meixia’s Release, But Authorities Escalate Her Persecution

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2012/10/28/136066.html

Kind Farmer Near Death after Being Persecuted for Three Months

http://en.minghui.org/html/articles/2013/1/2/136917.html

Chinese version available

CATEGORY: Accounts of Persecution

Munich, Germany: Spreading the Facts about Falun Gong at a Health Expo (Photo)

April 24, 2013 | By a practitioner in Bavaria, Germany

(Minghui.org) Local practitioners participated in a popular health expo targeting the “baby boomers” generation from April 12 to 14, 2013, in Munich, Germany. They set up a booth to promote Falun Gong spiritual practice and expose communist regime’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Many visitors expressed interest in the Falun Gong exercise demonstration and asked how they could learn the practice.

A woman stops by the practitioners’ booth to learn about Falun Gong.

Expo attendees were shocked to learn of the brutal suppression of Falun Gong practitioners in China. Many signed a petition to call for the end of the persecution and condemn the communist regime’s crime of organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners.

A lady asked: “China has great philosophers like Lao Tzu and Confucius, bright ancient civilization and things like Chinese traditional medicine. Why was the heretical communist party introduced into China?” She noted that the communist regime was damaging Chinese traditional culture.

Many German people came to know the facts about Falun Gong during the three-day event.

Chinese version available

CATEGORY: Other Community Events

Canberra, Australia: Candlelight Vigil Held Commemorating the April 25 Appeal (Photos)

(Minghui.org) On April 24, Falun Gong practitioners from Canberra, Australia, held a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese embassy, commemorating the 14^th anniversary of the April 25 Appeal, and calling for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Ms. Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner, gave a speech at the event. She said in her speech that the persecution of Falun Gong is the persecution of the spirit, which violates the human rights, ruins the moral standard and the law, and is the persecution of justice and conscience. The persecution is not only a disaster for the Chinese people, but also a disaster for all of humanity.

Many citizens passed by the candlelight vigil, and expressed their support.

Chinese version available

CATEGORY: April 25 Events