(Minghui.org) At 2:40 p.m. on April 11, 2012, the Nanhua County Court in Yunnan Province opened a court session for practitioners Luo Jiangping and Zhang Jimei. Lawyers from Beijing defended them, pleading not guilty.
On April 10, Nanhua County 610 Office agent Yang Zeping from the political and judiciary committee and Ma Xiaoyun instructed officers to harass and threaten the lawyers. The chief of the criminal court Li and Judge Zhangbiao directly went to Room 206 of the Yuanshang Hotel where the lawyers were staying and tried to bring the two lawyers to court. They took the copies of evidence files which the lawyers had obtained legally. They damaged one lawyer's computer, did not allow them to print any files and had the lawyers monitored.
Ma Xiaoyun only allowed the practitioners' immediate family members to attend the trial. However, the court arranged for more than one hundred other people to attend. They also monitored and took pictures of the practitioners' relatives waiting outside. They tried to prevent the practitioners' lawyers from entering the court and threatened them to get them to hand over all their evidence. After the lawyers repeatedly pleaded, the judge finally let lawyers enter the court, thus the court was delayed one hour and did not open until 3:40 p.m.
The court chief, public prosecutor, the recorder and the judge did not wear name tags. Judge Zhang Biao deliberately interrupted the lawyers' defense and even stopped Luo Jiangping and Zhang Jimei from giving their defense presentation. Lawyers requested that Luo Jiangping and Zhang Jimei be freed. The court announce it would hand down the sentence another day. However, after the session ended, the court chief, the judge and over 10 policemen surrounded the lawyers and threatened them to hand over all their evidence files and materials otherwise they would not be allowed to leave.
The lawyers' reasonable and substantiated defense touched most of the people attending the court. This shows that there are still many good people within the public security organs, procuratorial organs and people's courts. There is still hope for Chinese society. The families of the practitioners who were tried strongly questioned the fairness and righteousness of the proceedings. We hope more kind-hearted people will support them.
