(Minghui.org) A total of 113 Falun Gong practitioners from Changsha City, Hunan Province, filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin between July 10 and July 16, 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 of living healthier and happier lives, however, were 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 Changsha practitioners who filed criminal complaints come from all walks of life, including office workers, military personnel, teachers, farmers, and blue-collar workers.

Below, we profile a few of them:

Ms. Zou Jin (邹锦), 77, was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2001. The guards in the detention center gang-raped her and placed an electric baton inside her vagina to shock her. She was paralyzed from the waist down and died in 2011.

Ms. He Xianggu (贺祥姑), a nurse from the Hunan Province Maternal and Children Hospital, was tortured in a forced labor camp four times and in a mental hospital three times. She went on a hunger strike and the authorities force fed her with a sharpened bamboo stick.

Mr. Chen Jianzhong (陈建中) was head of the marketing department of a technology company. He was tortured in a forced labor camp for two years and died in 2007 at the age of 36.

In addition to above practitioners, the following have also filed criminal complaints:

Mr. Li Zhigang (李志刚), military personnel and researcherMr. Xu Feipeng (许飞鹏), 71, retired teacher, and his wifeMs. Lan Yuehui (兰跃辉), 52, farmerMs. Luo Yufang (罗玉芳), 54, farmerMs. Dong Zailin (董再林), 62, retired worker

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.