(Minghui.org) A total of 100 Falun Gong practitioners from Yangquan City, Shanxi Province, have filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin between June and mid July, 2015, according to reports compiled by the Minghui website.

The practitioners charge the former Chinese dictator with initiating the brutal suppression of Falun Gong and hold him responsible for the tremendous suffering inflicted upon them by his campaign. The criminal complaints were mailed to the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Many of these practitioners recounted how Falun Gong returned them to health and gave them a new outlook on life. Their dreams to live a healthier and happier life, however, wree shattered when Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide campaign to eradicate the practice in 1999.

Simply for refusing to give up their belief, they were arrested, detained, tortured, and had their homes ransacked and personal belongings seized by the communist authorities. Many also saw their families implicated for their belief, while some were also forced to pay huge fines.

The Yangquan practitioners who filed criminal complaints include people from all walks of life, including government officials, retired workers, and mostly farmers.

Below, we profile a few of them:

Ms. Wang Suping (王素萍), 58, formerly worked as an agronomist for the Bureau of Forestry in Yangquan. She was given one year of forced labor in 2001 and sentenced to prison for five years in 2004. She lost her job with the government.

Ms. Cheng Guifang (程贵芳) was given one year of forced labor in 2005 after being deceived into going to the local police station. On October 5, 2009, she was getting ready to see her daughter off to college at an airport when she was searched and arrested. The court used Falun Gong materials found on her as evidence and sentenced her to prison for four years.

Mr. Li Haiying (李海英), 58, was given one year of forced labor in 2001 and tortured during his detention. He was fired from his job in a government office. His wife, Ms. Yang Yinghua (杨迎花), was put in a forced labor camp around the same time for two years and was constantly monitored by the police after her release. Their two children were traumatized by the persecution of their parents.

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.