(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Chen Baozhi and his wife Ms. Zhang Yuanzhen have filed a criminal lawsuit against former Chinese president Jiang Zemin for wrongful imprisonment and suffering.
Sixteen Years of Persecution
Mr. Chen, in his 60s, was an employee of the Nanchang No. 5 Construction Company. After Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Mr. Chen was arrested three times. He was sentenced 11 years in prison after the third arrest, in 2001.
During his incarceration, Mr. Chen was severely abused and tortured: four of his teeth were knocked out; he lost hearing in his right ear as a result of a beating; a rib was fractured; he suffered severe liver injury; he lost partial function of his arms and hands and had difficulty walking.
After Mr. Chen was released from prison, officials at his workplace refused to provide him with documentation needed to receive his retirement pension.
Imprisoned for Exposing the Persecution
Mr. Chen was arrested in February 2001 along with three other Falun Gong practitioners for installing speakers in a public place to broadcast information about the persecution of Falun Gong.
He was brutally interrogated at the local police station. The police used high-voltage electric batons until he passed out, then viciously beat him.
A week later, Mr. Chen was transferred to the Nanchang No. 2 Detention Center. For the next month and a half, Mr. Chen was interrogated not only by police from various local, provincial police departments and 610 Office, but also by officers from other provinces. He was routinely tortured during the interrogations.
Because Mr. Chen was viewed by the authorities as an “important Falun Gong case,” then head of the 610 Office Luo Gan personally visited Nanchang in October 2001 to direct the outcome. He was sentenced to 11 years in prison at Yuzhang Prison in Jiangxi Province.
Family Forced to Pay Police Entertainment Expenses
Prior to the 2001 arrest, Mr. Chen went to Beijing in December 2000 to appeal for his constitutional right to practice Falun Gong. He was arrested and tortured when he refused to provide his personal information. He was sent to Fuxin Prison in Liaoning Province.
When officials from his home province of Nanchang eventually found out that Mr. Chen was held in Liaoning Province, one of the officials from Mr. Chen's workplace coerced Mr. Chen's son-in-law to go with him and bring Mr. Chen home. Along with them was the deputy director of a local police station. They forced Chen's son-in-law to pay for all their expenses, including unauthorized entertainment expenses.
After Mr. Chen escaped on the way back to Nanchang Province, the police went to his daughter's home four times in the middle of the night to search for him. Police officers also regularly appeared at Mr. Chen's in-laws' home.
In addition to the above incidents of persecution, Mr. Chen and his wife were taken to a local police station in April 2000. They were illegally detained for 77 days and 30 days, respectively.
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 over 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, of which Luo Gan was the head. 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.
