(Minghui.org) A criminal case against six Jimo City residents has been reassigned to a different jurisdiction after all the judges from the local court recused themselves from the case.

Li Honglei, Zhang Pengwei, Wang Zhongyu, Huang Ruying. Qiu Qinghua, and his son-in-law Xu Jianjun were arrested in June 2016 for refusing to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime.

The local police recommended a criminal charge of “destroying evidence” against the six Falun Gong practitioners, but the Jimo City Procuratorate returned the case multiple times, citing insufficient evidence.

Instead of releasing the practitioners, the Jimo police escalated the charge to “using a cult to undermine law enforcement,” a standard pretext used by the Chinese communist regime in its attempt to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.

Under pressure from the local authorities, the Jimo City Procuratorate indicted the practitioners with the new charge and forwarded the case to the Jimo City Court.

The practitioners’ lawyers and families made multiple trips to the Jimo City Court and urged the judges there to not get involved in the case. They reminded the judges that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong, and that the practitioners broke no law by exercising their constitutional right to freedom of belief.

The families learned in April 2017 that the case has been reassigned to Pingdu City Procuratorate, after all the judges in the Jimo City Court recused themselves from the case.

Pingdu City Procuratorate: +86-10-532-83012762, +86-10-532-83012787, +86-10-532-87362622, +86-10-532-87362549, +86-10-532-83012762