Four Hebei Residents Facing Trial—Family Defender Denied Access to Their Case Documents

(Minghui.org) Three Falun Gong practitioners and a non-practitioner in Tangshan City, Hebei Province are facing trial by the Lubei District Court.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Mr. Zhang Wei and his wife Ms. Guo Yanju, owners of the Zhuoyu Camera Store, were arrested at the store at around 1 p.m. on May 12, 2021. Their employee, Ms. Sun Baifeng, was also arrested. All three are Falun Gong practitioners.

The police ransacked the store and confiscated their Falun Gong books, computers, printers, cameras, and other items. Ms. Zhang Weiqi, who had worked at the store before and doesn’t practice Falun Gong, was arrested in Fengnan District around the same time. Her home was ransacked as well.

All of the officers were in plainclothes and none showed their IDs or a search warrant during the arrests and raid. Some threatened the victims’ families not to expose the incident online. One officer told the practitioners’ family members that he was Yang Zhiyong from the Lunan District Domestic Security Office. But the document he signed was under the name of Li Biao.

When the police ransacked Mr. Zhang and Ms. Guo’s home, Ms. Guo’s parents, who are in their 70s, were also there. Seeing that the elderly couple didn’t have much basic legal knowledge, the police also snatched valuables not related to Falun Gong, including several DSLR cameras, computers, and cellphones.

As Mr. Zhang and Ms. Guo also have a ten-year old daughter, Ms. Guo’s parents went to the police station on the next day to seek their release to take care of the young girl. Yang Zhiyong shouted at them, “Just send her to the orphanage if no one can take care of her!”

The police also sealed the door of the store and refused to return the keys and cameras to Ms. Guo’s parents, causing tremendous financial loss to the family.

In addition to the couple’s parents and daughter, Ms. Sun’s husband, who is struggling with severe diabetes, and Ms. Zhang’s ailing parents, who have extremely high blood pressure, are also left in distress over their arrests.

After the Lunan District Procuratorate approved the four people’s arrests, their families called prosecutor Wang Zhikai to ask what law their loved ones had violated. Wang replied that he wasn’t responsibility for explaining the allegations against them and hung up the phone.

The prosecutor also refused to let the practitioners’ family defender review their case documents, or to provide updates about their case. After returning the case twice to the police for additional evidence, prosecutor Wang transferred it to the Lubei District Procuratorate, and prosecutor Sun Mingyuan was assigned to handle it.

Similar to prosecutor Wang, Sun also refused to allow the practitioners’ family defender to review the case document. When the family defender called and requested to represent the practitioners in court, Sun immediately accused him of also being involved in the case, before the family member even got a chance to introduce himself.

When he called again to demand a review of their case documents, Sun replied that he had asked for instructions from his supervisor and was told that no one was allowed to review the practitioners’ case documents, as they contained state secrets. Sun also accused the practitioners of undermining the constitution.

The family defender went in person to Lubei District Procuratorate on September 3 to submit his legal opinion. Sun kept him waiting for hours and refused to meet with him. The family member kept calling the office, but no one answered the phone.

Sun indicted the four people on September 21 and moved their case to the Lubei District Court. Judge Zhao Ning and his assistant Li Ning have been assigned to handle the case.

The four people are now awaiting trial at the Tangshan City No. 1 Detention Center.

Perpetrators’ contact information:
Zhao Ning (赵宁), judge of Lubei District Court: [phone], [phone], [phone]Sun Mingyuan (孙明远), prosecutor of Lubei District Court: [phone]Wang Zhikai (王志凯), prosecutor of Lunan District Court: [phone]

(More perpetrators’ contact information is available in the original Chinese article.)

Related report:

Tangshan City, Hebei Province: Eight Locals Remain Detained Following Recent Group Arrest