(Minghui.org) Ms. Cui Xianling was prosecuted in the Wendeng Court of Shandong Province on December 19, 2014, for distributing Falun Dafa informational materials. Mr. Wang, an attorney from Beijing, represented Ms. Cui in court.
When the hearing started, Mr. Wang argued that “The perpetrators should never try the victim.” As he saw it, the Chinese Communist Party was the perpetrator that started the persecution of Falun Dafa, and thus a court system under its control is not fit to prosecute practitioners. Therefore, he requested that the court officials remove themselves from the trial.
Judge Zhang Wenjian adjourned the hearing at that point, and asked that all prosecuting attorneys and jurors leave the courtroom while he had a discussion with Mr. Wang and his client.
The trial resumed after 30 minutes, and the prosecutors seemed to ignore the previous statements made by Mr. Wang. Ms. Cui then explained that the information she had handed out before her arrest was a collection of stories about people who benefitted from practicing Falun Dafa or helping practitioners. Judge Zhang interrupted Ms. Cui's testimony and asked the attorneys if there was any other key evidence besides Ms. Cui's distribution of stories.
Lead prosecutor Mr. Guo Zhi then claimed that the person who had reported Ms. Cui to the police was his key evidence. However, not only did this person not show up for the trial, Mr. Guo did not reveal the person's identity. Instead, he just read a prepared transcript, claiming it was that person's testimony to the police.
The hearing went on for two hours, but the judge did not deem any of the evidence enough to find Ms. Cui guilty of a crime. He adjourned the trial and stated he would schedule a follow-up hearing at a later date.
