(Minghui.org) After three court hearings, four Falun Gong practitioners and a family member of theirs are scheduled to face a judge again on January 22, 2025.
Violent Arrests, Cash Confiscation, and Shaky Evidence
Mr. He Hongjun and his wife Ms. Fu Wenhui, of Chaoyang City, Liaoning Province, went to Mr. Lan Qingzhong’s print shop in Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia (about 100 miles away) on May 11, 2024. As soon as they arrived, plainclothes officers from the Qianjin Police Department in Chaoyang City rushed in. They confiscated Mr. Lan’s printers, computers, and 320,000 yuan cash, as well as the 120,000 yuan cash from the couple. Hours later, the police escorted Mr. He back to his home in Chaoyang City and seized another 91,000 yuan in cash, his home keys, car keys, and other items.
While taking Mr. Lan and his wife, Ms. Hu Xiuli, to Chaoyang in the afternoon on May 11, the police kept his hands tied up. One officer hit him on the head and face until blood came out of his mouth. They wiped off the blood to cover up the beating.
The fifth defendant, Mr. Tian Pengfei, was also arrested on May 11, 2024, when he was getting ready to take his five-year-old son to kindergarten. Mr. Tian doesn’t practice Falun Gong himself, but he supports his parents in the practice. His case wasn’t related to those of the above-mentioned four practitioners, but the police got him prosecuted together with them.
In order to collect information against Mr. Tian, the police searched his computer shop and his parent’s home but didn’t find any Falun Gong-related materials. They ended up using his late mother-in-law’s Falun Gong books, found at his brother-in-law’s home, as prosecution evidence against him.
Three Prior Hearings
The five defendants were issued formal arrest warrants by the Shuangta District Procuratorate in mid-June 2024. The prosecutor indicted them around mid-September 2024 and forwarded their cases to the Shuangta District Court.
Their first joint hearing on December 2 ran from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. During their second hearing on December 18, when the practitioners’ lawyers pointed out that the police and prosecutor violated legal procedure in handling the cases, judge Geng Hongyan shouted, “Then we will have ten hearings [until we can sentence them]!”
During the third hearing on December 23, as the police-provided video failed to prove how Mr. Tian was involved in any Falun Gong-related activities, prosecutor Bai Yanli called the Qianjin Police Station on the spot, instructing the police to submit additional evidence. The police turned in a photo of Falun Gong books in the afternoon, dated May 27, and claimed that they were found at Mr. Tian’s place. Yet there was no information about the location of the books on the photo.
The practitioners’ lawyers received a notice from the court on January 8, 2025, which said that the prosecutor had submitted more evidence and that the fourth hearing had been scheduled for January 22, 2025.
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