(Minghui.org) Ms. Yang Xiaolin from Mishan City filed a criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin in July 2015, one year after her release from a 12-year imprisonment for refusing to renounce her faith. She holds the former Chinese dictator responsible for launching the persecution of Falun Gong that resulted in her ordeal.

Ms. Yang was only in her mid-20s when she was arrested in July 2002. In prison, she was once beaten to the point of losing her hearing for one month. She was also forced to perform hard labor without pay for long periods of time, sometimes up to 18 hours a day.

She later refused to do hard labor and was forced to run laps in the courtyard. Despite the temperature being -30C (-22F), guards forbade her to wear a hat or warm clothes.

Ms. Yang was transferred to the prison's 13th ward in 2006, where guards brainwashed practitioners intensively to force them to renounce Falun Gong, utilizing former practitioners who had been “transformed” by the process. Despite the pressure, she refused to give in to the guards' demands.

While Ms. Yang was suffering in prison, her parents, who also practice Falun Gong, were also repeatedly arrested and sent to brainwashing centers.

Related report: Practitioner Ms. Yang Xiaolin Is Still Detained in the Harbin Women's Prison in Heilongjiang Province

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.