(Minghui.org) A Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province resident stood trial on December 13, 2019, for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Nie Jing was on her way back home after work on September 24, 2019, when she was approached by a man who asked whether she practices Falun Gong. Just as she pondered how to respond, the man said he practiced Falun Gong and grabbed her purse from which he found Falun Gong keepsakes. 

He made a call and several police officers showed up in a few minutes and arrested her. It occurred to Ms. Nie that the man was a plainclothes officer.

The police ransacked her home in the evening and sent her to Jinzhou Detention Center.

During her hearing in Taihe District Court in December 2019, her lawyer questioned how the police could submit a police report about her arrest to the prosecutor on September 22, 2019, two days before her actual arrest.

The police didn’t provide a list of items confiscated from Ms. Nie's home for her or her family to sign, yet they claimed that she refused to sign the list. 

Ms. Nie testified against the police for fabricating a witness, who was reportedly to have a surname of Zhang, to include in her case document. She said there was no one around when the plainclothes officer accosted her. 

Her lawyer also pointed out that there was no full name, home address, ID, or other required personal information about the witness in the case document. No witness appeared in court to accept cross-examination. 

Before to the hearing, Ms. Nie’s family once requested to see the prosecution evidence used to charge her. Li Lei, the deputy head of Taihe Domestic Security Division, said to them, “It’s not necessary for you to look at them. It wouldn’t be of any use even if you do.”

Ms. Nie’s lawyer demanded in court that the prosecutor present the prosecution evidence and videos taken by the police’s body cameras during her arrest and home-raid. The prosecutor said there weren’t such videos and that the prosecution evidence were illegal items owned by Ms. Nie and couldn’t be exhibited in court.

The prosecutor alleged that Ms. Nie was a repeat offender, citing the fact that she had been given a forced labor camp term before for her faith. Her lawyer refuted that the labor camp system itself was illegal and has already been abolished in 2013. 

Ms. Nie’s family also defended her innocence. They argued that no law ever criminalizes Falun Gong in China or labels it as a cult. And it’s her freedom of belief to practice Falun Gong, which didn’t cause harm to anyone or interfere with the law enforcement.