(Minghui.org) A court hearing was held for Mr. Li Yushu by the Fengrun District Court at 9:00 a.m. on August 28, 2012. Initially, his family was not allowed into the court, but after persistent requests from the family, a court officer began issuing permits for them to attend the trial.
As soon as everyone attending the trial sat down, one of the people in attendance was called out of the court room by a police officer. It was said that they tried to force her into a police car but failed, because she protested and fought them off.
When the trial started, the court order was read out and then Judge Xu Tianpeng said, “Everyone, including the family in attendance and the lawyers, must comply with the court, or they will be punished. Any violation of the court regulations will result in a fine of 1,000 yuan and being detained for fifteen days.”
When Mr. Li Yushu arrived in court, his friends and family saw that he had lost a lot of weight and was in handcuffs. Two of the defense lawyers strongly requested that the handcuffs be removed, but judge Xu refused and ordered them not to ask again.
Those standing for the prosecution included Gao Ruqi, Chen Qiong, and an unidentified male police officer. When Mr. Li Yushu was questioned about the charges brought against him, he said that much of it was fabricated and that the figures quoted by the police were vastly exaggerated, in terms of Falun Gong materials that were said to be found at his home.
In the course of the trial, Judge Xu repeatedly interrupted the lawyers' defense. When defense lawyer Jiang Tianyong referred to Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights: “Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience, and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief...” before the lawyer could finish reading the statement, Judge Xu cut him off, “You don't need to read the international regulations. If you want to discuss this, go where that legislation was made. Go ahead, go to the U.S.” The judge also stopped lawyer Jiang from talking several times. Each time a lawyer mentioned that there is no provision to specify Falun Gong as a cult in legal terms, Judge Xu stopped him, and told him that if he wanted to discuss this further he should go to the National People's Congress.
The police in Tangshan City, Hebei Province carried out three large-scale arrests of Falun Gong practitioners and ransacked their homes from February 25 to August 2012. They also secretly tried many practitioners.
