(Minghui.org) My daughter Yan is a very bright young woman, however, she could not get it when I explained to her that the persecution of Falun Gong in China is wrong. I did not know why. Then one day I read a story.
Bai Sui, a Grand Secretariat in the Qing Dynasty, was once involved in a scandal during the period of Emperor Xianfeng. His aide accepted bribery and enrolled a scholar surnamed Luo as a passing candidate in the imperial exam. After this fraudulence was found out, several who participated in it were punished. The emperor decided to remove Bai from office as well due to his unintentional malfeasance.
But Su Shun, another high official insisted on executing Bai. Bai was always honest and often directly pointed out bureaucratic issues, which upset some officials including Su.
“The wrongdoing was unforgivable; the fault was understandable,” wrote the emperor in his draft judgment, meaning that Bai simply overlooked this issue.
Su did not budge (perhaps due to his deep connection with the royal family) and said coldly, “The fault was understandable; the wrongdoing was unforgivable.”
As Su reversed the order of the two sentences, the emperor ordered Bai executed at Caishikou, a public place where capital punishment was usually carried out during Qing Dynasty.
This story showed the importance of the order one says things to people. It gave me an idea of how to explain the persecution of Falun Gong to my daughter.
When the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to persecute Falun Gong in 1999, Yan was only 13. She was terrified seeing me arrested and detained time and again for upholding my faith in Falun Gong. When police repeatedly came to ransack our home, she was scared and felt helpless. The traumatic scenes cast a shadow on her young mind, making her unwilling to learn what Falun Gong is all about.
But Yan still loved me. After I filed a criminal complaint in 2016 against former CCP top leader Jiang Zemin for ordering the persecution of Falun Gong, I was detained again. After I was released, Yan – already married at the time – picked me up and asked me to stay with her family. “I will protect you [from being arrested again],” she said to me. But whenever I tried to talk about Falun Gong, she would say no – the traumatic experiences over the years in the ruthless persecution had been too overwhelming to her.
One day, her cousin who works at the local police department told her that local officials were planning another mass arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. At that time, I already moved back to my own place, not far from Yan. She warned me of the situation and asked me not to go out and clarify the truth. I was about to explain to her that Falun Gong practitioners are innocent, but she immediately stopped me and said, “Please don’t talk about these. Okay? If police arrest a person, it means that person must have broken the law.”
I suddenly realized why Yan refused to listen to me talking about Falun Gong – all these years she had thought that I had violated the law. So I calmed down and said, “Yan, you are a super smart girl. Just look up on the internet and you will find that the 14 cults listed by the Ministry of Public Security do not include Falun Gong. In fact, Announcement 50 of the General Administration of Press and Publication issued in 2011 had lifted the ban on the publication of Falun Gong books. Therefore, the persecution of Falun Gong is illegal and it targets innocent people like your mother.”
I also apologized to her for the inconvenience that the suppression had brought her these years. “But if police arrest me again, I would sue them for violating Criminal Law, including Article 238 on illegal detention, Article 239 on abduction, Article 245 on unlawful intrusion, and Article 251 on unlawful deprivation of religious freedom.”
Yan looked at me in surprise, with her jaws dropped, and said. “Mom, you know laws??” I said yes because I had been learning. “If needed, I can defend [Falun Gong] cases like a lawyer,” I added. At that time, I felt Master Li (founder of Falun Gong) was next to me helping me. After all, under the totalitarian rule by the CCP, it is difficult for ordinary citizens to know much about law.
When I continued talking with Yan about the facts of Falun Gong later on, she no longer resisted. Gradually she accepted and came to know why the CCP would persecute innocent practitioners. When I urged our relatives to quit the CCP organizations, Yan did not stop me anymore. She also reminded me to send forth righteous thoughts to oppose the persecution.
The traditional Chinese culture is very profound and we can learn a lot from that. I drew inspiration from the ancient story mentioned in the beginning of the article. Just by changing the order of reasoning – talking about the facts of law first and then the facts of Falun Gong – I was able to make a breakthrough in my efforts to clarify the truth to my own daughter.
The process also helped me a lot. While talking to my daughter about laws, I felt the fear that had bothered me for years was suddenly gone completely. Looking back, I realized I had also acknowledged the CCP’s suppression all these years. Once I was clear about my legal rights as a citizen, I knew it was the CCP that has broken the law in persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. With this understanding, my fear of being persecuted went away instantly.
During the “zero-out” campaign (aimed to force every practitioner to renounce their faith) and the harassment by police in the months leading up to the CCP’s 20th National Congress in October 2022, I was just fine although I was on the police’s blacklist. I am very thankful for Master Li’s protection.
There is a legal term called “breach of procedural law.” Article 238 of the Criminal Procedure Law specifies that the original judgment should be revoked if the first instance court “violates this law’s provisions on open trials,” “violates the recusal system,” or “takes away or limits a party’s litigation rights and might impact trial fairness.” Similarly, the original verdict may be invalidated if “the composition of the trial organization was unlawful” or “other violations of statutory litigation procedures that might influence trial fairness.”
For example, the Zhoukou Court of He’nan Province published the second-instance judgment of an administrative litigation case on the Chinese Judgment Documents website on July 3, 2020. When Luyi County Police Department processed a gambling case, the police officer who wrote the arrest the report had an expired police card. The original judgment was thus invalidated.
In fact, there have been many types of breach of procedural law when Falun Gong practitioners are arrested in China. For example, practitioners were often not informed of their rights and the judge and the prosecutor who should have recused themselves did not do so. In addition, the police often interrogate practitioners for longer than legally permissible time, and they often extracted confessions by torture. All these could revoke the prison sentence against practitioners.
In addition, Article 91 of Criminal Procedure Law clearly states that one should not be detained at a detention center for more than 37 days, during which time police must secure approval of arrest warrant from the procuratorate. Such information is useful in helping us rescue practitioners and stop police from breaching procedural laws.
In one recent criminal case, the defendant received the death penalty. During his appeal, his lawyer pointed out that the trial court breached procedural law and the original judgment was revoked. In another case, Zhang Yuhuan from Jiangxi Province was interrogated with torture for 6 days and nights, during which time the police also brought in a wolfdog to bite him. He was wrongly imprisoned for 26 years until he was exonerated and released in August 2020.
It is true that the CCP rarely follows the law, but it still uses the law to criminalize whoever it intends to purge. There are countless examples of Falun Gong practitioners being wronged, so familiarity with Criminal Procedure Law will help defend ourselves.
For example, when a detained practitioner pointed out during interrogation that the interrogating officer was inducing confessions, the officer immediately stopped talking. There are many situations of this kind and we can do better to oppose the persecution and save people.
Above are my personal opinions. Please point out anything inappropriate.