(Minghui.org) A 55-year-old man in Linyi City, Shandong Province, was transferred to a local prison in early 2023 to finish serving the last few months of his 1.5-year term for practicing Falun Gong. From his arrest to the trial, the police, the prosecutor, and the judge all deceived him, his family, and his lawyer.
Mr. Ji Yongcheng was distributing informational materials about Falun Gong on September 26, 2020, when he handed a copy to a plainclothes officer. The officer pretended to be interested in Falun Gong to prevent Mr. Ji from leaving. He paged more officers to come and arrest Mr. Ji.
Mr. Ji refused to go with them. He kept telling them that Falun Gong was being unjustly persecuted. The police didn’t want to cause a scene and draw a crowd, so they lied, saying, “We won’t do anything to you. If you just come with us and tell us more about yourself at the police station, we will let you go.” Mr. Ji believed them, agreed to get into the police car, and was taken to the Xijiao Police Station. When they found out his name and address, the police ransacked his home.
Mr. Ji was interrogated all day. When the police took him to the detention center the next day, the guards there refused to admit him due to the pandemic. At his family’s insistence, the police released him on bail. They then deceived him and his family. saying that his case would be dismissed after one year of bail.
After that, the police went to Mr. Ji’s home twice in an attempt to arrest him. But he wasn’t home either time.
The police went to Mr. Ji’s home again on February 15, 2022. His family was helping him escape by scaling the wall when the police saw him and said, “Why are you running away? We were just checking to see if you were home or not. We won’t arrest you. You’d better get down off the ladder.”
Mr. Ji again believed the police and climbed down the ladder. As soon as he reached the ground, the police arrested him and took him to the police station. He was transferred to the Mengyin County Detention Center two days later and then to the Hedong Detention Center.
The Lanshan District Procuratorate approved Mr. Ji’s arrest on March 1, 2022. Mr. Ji initially refused to sign the case document and demanded that the prosecutor dismiss his case. The prosecutor lied to him, saying that they would release him if he signed it. Mr. Ji signed it, only to be told months later that he was scheduled to be tried in the Lanshan District Court.
After the hearing, the judge promised his lawyer that the hearing went well and that he would be released in a week or two. But in September 2022, Mr. Ji’s family was devastated to learn that he had been sentenced to a year and a half in prison.
When the family went to the detention center to make a cash deposit for him, the authorities didn’t approve it. Because there was less than a year left on his term, his family expected that he would finish serving time in the detention center, as that was how the cases were usually handled. But in early 2023, after the zero-COVID policy had been lifted, they were shocked to find out that Mr. Ji was secretly transferred to the Shandong Province Prison without their knowledge.
The Persecution of His Family
When Falun Gong spread through Mr. Ji’s hometown in Mengyin County during the 1990s, he, his parents, his two brothers, and a sister all took up the practice. Their health and characters all improved. After witnessing their changes, many of the villagers began to practice Falun Gong as well.
After the Chinese communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, the family suffered tremendously.
Mr. Ji’s older brother Mr. Ji Yongxian was fired from his job, had his home ransacked, and was held in a brainwashing center and a forced labor camp. He passed out several times due to the torture. When his father delivered food to him, the older man was so shaken to see how badly his son had been beaten that he became bedridden shortly after.
Mr. Ji Yongcheng’s mother and younger brother were also arrested, detained, and tortured. His younger brother, Mr. Ji Yongshi, was also given a forced labor camp term for appealing for the right to practice Falun Gong in Beijing.
Mr. Ji’s younger sister was forced to live away from home with her two-year-old child to hide from the police. She was arrested one night and taken to a brainwashing center.
The persecution left the family in dire financial straits. Over 30,000 yuan was extorted from them over the years. Unable to afford school, Mr. Ji Yongcheng’s own child was forced to drop out and began to work at a young age.
Related reports:
Mengyin County, Shandong Province: Nine Falun Gong Practitioners Still Detained for Their Faith
Shandong Man Sentenced to 1.5 Years for Distributing Information About His Faith
Copyright © 2023 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
