(Minghui.org) A 63-year-old resident of Yinchuan City, Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region, lost his appeal against a 1.5-year sentence on February 2, 2024 for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Mr. Ding Qian (also known as Ding Fadong) was admitted to the Shizuishan City Prison weeks later in late February 2024.
Mr. Ding used to teach music at a middle school in Qingtongxia City, which is also in Ningxia and about 30 miles away from Yinchuan City. He was an excellent keyboard player and one of his compositions won an award at a national competition. He began to practice Falun Gong in 1998 and soon recovered from ailments that had plagued him for more than two decades.
After the persecution began a year later, he became a target. Prior to his latest prison sentence, he served four forced labor terms totaling 8 years between 1999 and 2013. He was released from his last labor camp term in May 2013, only to be arrested again on September 15 that year and soon sentenced to three years in the Yinchuan City Prison.
Mr. Ding’s latest prison sentence stemmed from his arrest on May 24, 2023, by agents from the Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office. They accused him of giving out flash drives containing Falun Gong information to three guests at a wedding reception held at the Longhai Restaurant in Qingtongxia City on March 20, 2022. Mr. Ding did attend the wedding but denied having ever distributed Falun Gong materials to anyone at the event.
The Litong District Procuratorate in Wuzhong City (which oversees Qingtongxia City) indicted Mr. Ding. He stood trial at the Litong District Court on October 31, 2023. He was sentenced to 1.5 years with a 5,000-yuan fine on November 23, 2023.
The Wuzhong City Intermediate Court held two appeals hearings (exact time unknown). Judge Han Fen presided over both hearings. Also present were judges Hou Shijun and Xu Jing, clerk Ding Liying, as well as prosecutors Suo Yaohuan and Liao Min from the Wuzhong City Procuratorate.
Both Mr. Ding, his lawyer and son (who served as his non-lawyer family defender) testified against the Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office, the Litong District Procuratorate, and the Litong District Court for arresting, indicting, and sentencing him without any legal basis or valid evidence. They demanded an overturn of Mr. Ding’s guilty verdict, but the Wuzhong City Intermediate Court ruled to uphold the wrongful conviction on February 2, 2024. He was transferred from the Wuzhong City Detention Center to the Shizuishan City Prison shortly afterwards.
The rest of the report details what Mr. Ding and his defense said during the appeals hearings. In essence, they provided a detailed rebuttal to the prosecution evidence used to convict Mr. Ding during his trial and asked to overturn his guilty verdict.
The Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office violated Mr. Ding’s legal rights before, during, and after his arrest, which resulted in his being wrongfully indicted and sentenced.
Pre-arrest
The Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office arrested Mr. Ding for “distributing flash drives at a wedding reception.” They claimed that Ma Li, one of the aforementioned three wedding guests, reported to them that someone had given him, Sha Keming, and Xia Huirong each a flash drive at the reception. Upon discovering Falun Gong information on the flash drive, Ma reported it to the Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office and admitted that he deleted part of the content. The police never questioned if Ma had added any content to the flash drive and still used the adulterated flash drive as evidence against Mr. Ding.
The police examined the restaurant’s surveillance video and saw a man wearing a face mask resembling Mr. Ding at the reception. They concluded that he was the “suspect” and showed a photo lineup to Ma.
Ma did not recognize anyone in the photo lineup as the mask-wearing guest who had given him the flash drive. In the police video recording, officers Liu Wei and Yuan Huiyun’s questioning of Ma, they were seen pointing at Mr. Ding’s photo and asked Ma if he was the one giving out flash drives. Ma, whose face was not shown in the police video, sounded unsure but still said yes when prompted by Liu and Yuan.
The police later interviewed other wedding guests but none of them saw Mr. Ding distributing flash drives or Falun Gong materials at the wedding reception.
Ma, along with officers Liu and Yuan, were all listed as prosecution’s witnesses. Officer Wang Yan was also made a witness and he stated, “I have been assigned to monitor Ding Qian since April 2015 when he was still serving time in prison. He is a key person in the Falun Gong organization.” Wang knew nothing about the wedding reception, but his statement was used to show that Mr. Ding was a so-called repeat offender.
The police proceeded to establish a criminal case against Mr. Ding. His lawyer pointed out during his trial that the case file failed to meet many of the filing standards required by law.
During Arrest
After seizing Mr. Ding outside his apartment building on May 24, 2023, a group of plainclothes officers proceeded to raid his home. They did not show their IDs or any search warrant. When Mr. Ding condemned them for breaking into his residence, an officer produced a card in the size of an ID and said it was a search warrant. Mr. Ding noted a time stamp on it saying 11:00 a.m.
Mr. Ding’s son later found an official template of police search warrant and realized the warrant should be of A4 paper size (similar to the letter size paper in the U.S.). It dawned on him that his father had been duped into believing that the little card the police showed during the home raid was a search warrant.
By law, there should be a witness present during police raid. Mr. Ding’s family was never notified of the raid, much less witnessing it or verifying if the items the police said they confiscated from his home were indeed his or of the correct amount. They also showed a written record of their home raid with a time stamp of 11:40 a.m. on May 24, 2023 as the start time, which contradicted the 11:00 a.m. start time shown on the fake search warrant that Mr. Ding noticed.
Post-arrest
Mr. Ding refused to answer questions during the police interrogation or sign the interrogation records. By law, only interrogation records that bear the defendant’s signature could be used as prosecution evidence. The police, however, still included the unsigned interrogation records in the case against Mr. Ding.
The Wuzhong City Police Department, which oversees the Qingtongxia City Domestic Security Office, issued a certificate to authenticate the “evidence” against Mr. Ding. The report did not have any individual’s signature either. By law, only a third-party, independent forensic agency is authorized to examine and verify prosecution evidence. As the arresting officers’ supervising agency, the police department had no authority in validating prosecution evidence.
As discussed in the above section, the police-supplied evidence was either invalid or unlawful, yet prosecutor Wu Meiling of the Litong District Procuratorate and judge Yang Hui of the Litong District Court still accepted them as admissible evidence and proceeded to indict and sentence Mr. Ding.
Wu charged Mr. Ding with “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement.” She, however, failed to specify which law Mr. Ding had allegedly undermined. Judge Yang was unable to answer either.
Mr. Ding’s son also demanded that the police explain why they turned down the family’s two requests to release Mr. Ding on bail for medical treatment when he had persistent dangerously high blood pressure. The officers present at the trial did not answer.
Wu alleged that the flash drives that Mr. Ding distributed at the wedding reception, as well as the Falun Gong materials confiscated from his home, were evidence that he broke the law. His lawyer refuted that Mr. Ding never gave out the said flash drives. Additionally, the Falun Gong materials confiscated from his home were for his personal use and Wu failed to demonstrate how the materials or his practicing Falun Gong had allegedly caused any harm to anyone or society at large. Wu responded that the prosecution in Falun Gong cases did not need to prove that the defendants had caused any harm. By law, the burden of proof is always on the prosecutor in order to convict a defendant.
Wu cited Mr. Ding’s four terms of forced labor and one prior prison sentence as evidence he broke the law as a repeat offender. His lawyer argued that he should never have been incarcerated in the past in the first place.
The lawyer asked that judge Yang call the prosecution witnesses to the stand to accept cross-examination, but his request was denied. Neither Yang nor Wu explained why no witnesses were present.
After Mr. Ding was sentenced, his son noted that the guilty verdict issued by Yang did not include any of the defense rebuttal to the police-supplied evidence. The verdict read like an endorsement of the police accusation against Mr. Ding. By law, the judge should be impartial and consider the arguments of both the prosecution and the defense.
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