(Minghui.org) A total of 657 Falun Gong practitioners from Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province, have filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin between May 27 to August 23, 2015.

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 dream to live a healthier and happier life, however, was 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. Many also saw their families implicated for their belief, while some were also forced to pay huge fines.

Brief Excerpts from Three Plaintiffs

The Xianning practitioners who filed criminal complaints include bank employees, government officials, police officers, business owners, physicians, farmers, and blue-collar workers.

Below, we profile three of these practitioners:

Ms. Jin Lihong (金力红) was a nurse. She was given two years in a forced labor camp and sentenced to three-and-half-years in a prison. She was tortured while in custody by being brutally beaten, force-fed, and handcuffed with her hands behind her back. On orders from the 610 Office, she was fired from her job after she was released from prison in 2008.

Mr. Chen Jiang (陈健), 44, is a farmer. He was arrested in May 2008 and sentenced to prison five months later. A police officer hit his face so hard that seven of his teeth became loose and a few eventually fell out. He now has to wear dentures. Another time the guards kept his hands cuffed behind his back and his feet shackled for 37 days. He also witnessed three practitioners that were persecuted to death within less than two weeks. He was diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder.

Mr. Zhang Chengyou (张成有), is a retired coal miner. Since the beginning of the persecution, he has been detained at least seven times and had his home raided four times. The police extorted large sums of money from his family whenever he was arrested. He was also tortured during his detentions. He and his family were harassed countless times by local authorities.

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 during 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.