(Minghui.org) Ms. Feng Xilan joined the hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners who are exercising their right to sue former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin for his role in launching the brutal and ongoing persecution of their peaceful cultivation practice. Her criminal complaint charged Jiang with abuse of power, as the key person responsible for the violent suppression of the practice. Ms. Feng, from Rushan, Shandong Province, mailed her criminal complaint to the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate on May 31, 2015.

Ms. Feng Xilan

Ms. Feng Xilan, a Falun Gong practitioner from Shandong Province, filed a criminal complaint against former CCP leader Jiang Zemin for his role in the persecution of Falun Gong.

Since 1999, when the persecution began, Ms. Feng has been repeatedly harassed by the police, arrested, and tortured in prison. She could not find steady work because of the constant threats and harassment. Her husband divorced her under pressure from his workplace and from the police, and would not allow their son to see her.

Ms. Feng Recounts Her Ordeal

“When the police and my ex-husband pressured me to give up practicing Falun Gong, they made me feel like I had done something terribly wrong and that I did not fit in society. The police ransacked my home while I looked on in handcuffs. My neighbors regarded me with distrust. This treatment hurt me very much,” Ms. Feng recalled.

“My family and I endured enormous physical and mental pressure all these years. My mother worried for my safety whenever I left the house. She would not go to bed until I returned home. Her health deteriorated quickly from the horrific conditions we lived under during the persecution. In the days just before she died, she could not talk or eat. She could only look at me with a grief-stricken stare, as big tears streamed from her eyes. It broke my heart.

“I was sentenced to nine years in 2006 for practicing Falun Gong. The prison would not take me because I was extremely weak, so I was returned to the detention center. I began a hunger strike to protest and became even weaker.

“My son, who did not know I was arrested, had a dream that I was dying and woke up crying. Even though his father objected, he found my sisters and insisted they take him to see me. When he arrived to see me, the detention center denied his visitation.

“The detention center released me a month later when I was close to death. When I finally got a chance to see my son, we both burst into tears.

“I moved to a new place to avoid the persecution in August 2012. On the day I moved, I saw officer Song Xiangjun from the Domestic Security Division in my neighborhood monitoring me. He followed me to work and pressured my manager to dismiss me. When I was trying to look for another job, Song again followed me and threatened the hiring manager as soon as I left.

“I told my landlord that I planned to move in October. Shortly after my call, I noticed someone sneaking into my home. It happened the next two days, as well. I knew the police were monitoring everything I was doing, including my cellphone conversations. I aged ten years in just a few months under the tremendous pressure.”

Key Facts in Ms. Feng's Complaint
• Since 1999 Ms. Feng has been arrested 11 times and sentenced twice for a total of 12 years. She was in critical condition due to the persecution only a few months into both of her prison terms, and was soon released.
• Six police officers beat Ms. Feng with a thick rubber stick when she was arrested protesting for Falun Gong in Beijing on February 26, 2001. Her buttocks were severely injured. After the beating, the police locked her in a metal cage and did not provide her with any food or drink for five days.
• Ms. Feng was tortured in detention. Sleep deprivation, being suspended in the air by her arms, and being shackled to a chair were common tortures she suffered.
• Ms. Feng was arrested while visiting a friend in 2012. The police detained her at a high-security brainwashing center for 27 days. She was shackled to a chair the whole time and was subjected to brainwashing and verbal abuse. Shortly after her release from the brainwashing center, the police installed a tracking device on her motorcycle to monitor her travels outside her home.

Tracking device found on Ms. Feng's motorcycle

• In addition to financial loss from constantly losing her job, the police seized 34,000 yuan in cash, her motorcycle, computers, printers, and large quantities of office supplies that Ms. Feng bought with her limited savings to make informational materials about Falun Gong.

Background

In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.

The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.

Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.

Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.