(Minghui.org) I once watched a video of a famous human rights lawyer. He shared the story of a client, who was wronged by the authorities. He agreed to take the case on the condition that the client’s family mail appeal letters to government officials.
The family doubted if it’d be of any use to write to the authorities who wronged their loved one. The lawyer responded, “If you don’t do it, how would you know no one would listen to you? Furthermore, if you don’t let them know they wronged your loved one, isn’t the injustice getting even worse?”
The family accepted the lawyer’s suggestion and prepared 10,000 copies of their appeals letter. From the central government to the local government, they mailed the letters to almost every address they could find. At the same time, they worked with the lawyer in filing complaints against the perpetrators and requested a postponement of the trial. In the end, the court returned the case to the procuratorate, which then returned it to the police. Eventually, the police dismissed the case.
I also read a sharing article on Minghui. The author mailed at least 70 letters to local authorities and the central government after her pension was unlawfully suspended for her faith in Falun Gong. In the end, she successfully got her pension reinstated.
As more and more human rights lawyers have stepped forward to represent Falun Gong practitioners in recent years, the Chinese Communist Party has also intensified the suppression of the lawyers. From demanding documents not required for taking on Falun Gong cases to forcibly removing the lawyers from courtrooms, it’s becoming more and more difficult for the lawyers to seek justice for their practitioner-clients.
According to China’s Criminal Law, there are three important time windows during the prosecution process: 1) The police can detain a suspect for up to 37 days before the procuratorate approves the arrest; 2) The procuratorate has up to 13.5 months to file charges against the suspect; and 3) Once the case is forwarded to the court, it has two to six months to hold court hearings and issue a verdict. If a trial has to be postponed for whatever reason, the postponement time of the trial will not be counted as part of the 2-6 months time window.
Given the information above, some lawyers have suggested targeting the first critical time window of 37 days and trying to make the police drop the case before the procuratorate issues a formal arrest warrant. I think that even if we are unsuccessful in this regard, we should keep writing to relevant government agencies and stop the procuratorate from filing formal charges against practitioners during the second time window of 13.5 months. If that fails, we may request a postponement of the trial to try to stop the court from holding hearings and eventually issuing a verdict.
I once read some statistics saying that less than 0.03% of the defendants are acquitted if the court ever holds a hearing of their cases. While I can’t confirm the validity of the statistic, I think it goes to show the importance of stopping the court from trying Dafa practitioners in the first place.
Of course, even if the court tries practitioners and sentences them to prison, we should still keep seeking justice for them by filing appeals with the higher courts. If the higher court rules to uphold the original verdict, we should still keep seeking justice for the practitioner.
I remember a practitioner once said, “If the court doesn’t uphold justice, then we will turn to society for justice. If the judge doesn’t allow us to talk in court, then we will speak with letters and complaints.”
Master taught us,
“Clarifying the truth during the gigantic changes has already become the major way of saving all beings and the world’s people...”
and
“It is a master key, the key that can unlock that thing all beings have had sealed off for a long time and been awaiting for ages.” (“Fa Teaching Given at the 2003 Atlanta Fa Conference,” Collected Teachings Given Around the World Volume IV)
If we can all mail letters to relevant government agencies to seek justice for practitioners who are unlawfully incarcerated, forced to live away from home or those on the police’s wanted list, will the communist regime remain unscrupulous in arresting, detaining or sentencing the practitioners?
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