(Minghui.org) Three residents of Dongying City, Shandong Province are awaiting verdicts after three court hearings for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Mr. Du Jianxin, 50, his wife Ms. Wang Fan, 49, and Mr. Fu Jian, 46, were arrested on November 29, 2023, during a police sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. According to an insider, the mass arrests were ordered by the Dongying City Police Department and the Binhai Police Department. Prior to the arrests, the police spent a month monitoring the practitioners’ daily lives, including installing tracking devices on their cars and arranging agents to follow and photograph them.
Officers Wei Yi (+86-18205462707), Zhang Yonggang, Zhang Rui, Weng Jianzhong, Chang Wei, and Yao Jing from the Binhai Police Department submitted the cases against Mr. Du, Ms. Wang, and Mr. Fu to the Dongying District Procuratorate in Dongying City. The three practitioners were indicted at an unknown date.
Mr. Du’s mother was so distraught by her son’s and daughter-in-law’s arrests that she passed away in May 2024. The couple’s family hired a lawyer to represent them. The Binhai Detention Center barred the lawyer from visiting his clients and said he had to get approval from the Dongying City Police Department first. The police claimed that they could not grant any meetings because they were in the process of interrogating the couple and gathering prosecution evidence. As a matter of fact, the police never went to the detention center to question the couple. Ms. Wang went on a hunger strike in protest and was force-fed.
The Dongying District Court in Dongying City held the first hearing of the three practitioners’ cases on July 3, 2024. Presiding judge Liu Nan did not allow the practitioners or their lawyers to present any defense statements. During the second and the third hearings on October 16 and 21, she allowed the defense statements to be presented. The lawyers entered not guilty pleas for their clients.
One key piece of prosecution evidence presented by prosecutor Wang Shasha (+86-18661396357) was interrogation records concerning another local Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Liu Chunrong, a retired water company employee. Ms. Liu was also arrested on November 29, 2023. Although she was released at 10 p.m. that night, she was arrested again one week later, on December 7 and taken to the Jishu Brainwashing Center, where she was abused to the point of developing a mental disorder in five days. The police then had her sign many documents, including several blank pieces of paper.
Prosecutor Wang alleged that these interrogation records stated that Ms. Liu “ratted out” Mr. Fu, Mr. Du, and his wife and that what Ms. Liu “confessed” was sufficient evidence that the three practitioners on trial had broken the law.
The trio and their lawyers, who had learned about Ms. Liu’s abuse from an insider, challenged the prosecutor to show videos of Ms. Liu being abused then coerced into signing the documents when she had no mental clarity. The prosecutor did not play any videos or address the question of how such illegally-gathered “evidence” against the three practitioners could be admissible in the trial.
It is unclear when judge Liu will issue a ruling. The three practitioners remain at the Binhai Detention Center at the time of writing. All three have been previously targeted for their faith.
Past Persecution
Mr. Du and Ms. Wang used to work at the Longkou Offshore Oil Shipping Company, with the former being a sailor and the latter a translator handling documents written in Russian. Since the onset of the persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, the couple have been repeatedly arrested. Ms. Wang was sentenced to 3.5 years on June 5, 2002 and was given a 3-year labor camp term in 2008. The authorities extended her labor camp term by another 3 years because she refused to renounce Falun Gong. Mr. Du was held in brainwashing centers multiple times and was sentenced to 10 years following his arrest in January 2011.
Mr. Fu, a veteran, worked at the Juneng Thermal Power Plant in Shouguang City (also in Shandong Province) and won “Employee of the Year” many times. He was previously arrested at 8 a.m. on April 15, 2013, while taking his company’s bus to work. He was held at a brainwashing center and restrained in a metal chair with his hands cuffed and feet shackled for 30 straight days. His legs and feet became swollen and he had difficulty walking after he was freed from the chair. He went on a hunger strike for five days and became emaciated. His teeth became loose and he suffered hair loss after continued abuse in detention. After he was released from the brainwashing center, he went into hiding and later moved to Dongying City, about 60 miles from Shouguang.
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Dongying City, Shandong Province: 18 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in One Day
Young Couple from Shandong Province Suffer Years of Severe Persecution
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