(Minghui.org) Mr. Yang Shengrong, a 74-year-old farmer from Langfang City, Hebei Province, recovered from lung cancer shortly after he started practicing Falun Gong in 2007.

However, after the former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin initiated the campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in 1999, Mr. Yang's right to practice Falun Gong was taken away from him.

Mr. Yang is now exercising his right to file a criminal complaint against Jiang for the deprivation of his constitutional freedom of belief, which he mailed to the Supreme People’s Court and the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on May 30, 2015.

“Many practitioners are illegally imprisoned and tortured to death under the persecution. Jiang should be held responsible for all the suffering he brought to the practitioners. The government should return to us the freedom and legal right to practice and promote Falun Gong in China,” Mr. Yang wrote in his complaint.

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.