(Minghui.org) The Tonghua County Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC) in Jilin Province has used various excuses to bar a defense lawyer from meeting his client, a Falun Gong practitioner sentenced to prison for his faith.
Mr. Deng Yuqing, a resident of Xinbin County, Liaoning Province was arrested in June 2015 while dropping off his criminal complaint against Jiang Zemin at a post office in nearby Tonghua County.
He accuses the former Chinese leader of launching the persecution of Falun Gong that infringed upon his freedom of belief and resulted in his past detentions.
Tonghua County Court sentenced Mr. Deng to 3.5 years around April this year. He filed an appeal shortly afterwards, but the detention center where he is still being held denied his lawyer’s meeting requests, citing orders from the PLAC–an agency given power to override the judicial system in carrying out the communist regime's persecution of Falun Gong.
Mr. Deng’s family called the PLAC and was told that an approval from the central government would be needed for lawyer-client meetings in Falun Gong cases. When they argued that Mr. Deng has the constitutional right to see his lawyer, the receptionist who answered the phone said, “If we say [he] can’t meet his lawyer, he just can’t!”
Related report:Four Liaoning Residents Sentenced to Prison for Trying to Sue Former Chinese Dictator
