70-Year-Old Liaoning Man Stands Trial for Practicing Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) Mr. Guan Chenglin, 70, of Faku County, Liaoning Province, was tried on July 30, 2024 for practicing Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. The prosecutor recommended Mr. Guan be given a 7-8 year prison term.

Mr. Guan was arrested on August 29, 2023 and released under house arrest one month later. He was taken back into custody on July 10, 2024 and has since remained at the Xinmin City Detention Center.

Arrested for Reposting Videos on Social Media

Mr. Guan’s arrest was triggered by an investigation of another local Falun Gong practitioner, Song Hongman (gender unknown), who was accused of posting Falun Gong videos on Douyin (Chinese version of TikTok) and Kuaishou (Chinese version of Kwai), both are social media platforms which host short videos. Police departments in Shenyang City (in Liaoning Province), Zhengzhou City (in Henan Province), and Xianyang City (in Shaanxi Province), were involved in the investigation.

The police discovered Mr. Guan’s information from Song’s account and noticed that he reposted some videos in his Kuaishou account. The Shenyang City Police Department shared the findings with its subordinate Faku County Police Department, which then instructed the Xiushuihe Police Station to arrest Mr. Guan on August 29, 2023. He was given criminal detention at the Faku County Detention Center.

The Liaozhong District Procuratorate in Shenyang City announced on September 28, 2023 to not issue a formal arrest warrant for Mr. Guan. He was then released under house arrest that day.

Officers Ma Tianlong and Guo Xiaoliang from the Xiushuihe Police Station visited Mr. Guan separately, on December 25, 2023 and February 26, 2024, demanding that he cooperate with them in verifying the two cell phones he had and the Kuaishou account he used to repost videos.

The Faku County Police Department submitted the case to the Xinmin City Procuratorate on March 27, 2024. Prosecutor Wang Hao indicted him on June 3, 2024, accusing him of reposting Falun Gong videos between 2022 and 2023. Wang recommended a 7-8 years prison sentence and a fine.

Mr. Guan was taken back into custody on July 10, 2024 and sent to the Xinmin City Detention Center. He stood trial at the Xinmin City Court on July 30, 2024.

Trial Details

Mr. Guan had two non-lawyer defenders enter a not-guilty plea for him. At the beginning of the trial, they requested recusals of presiding judge Lin Shujing ([phone]; [phone]) and prosecutor Wang ([phone]) as the two were both atheist members of the Chinese Communist Party and deemed unfit to prosecute someone for his spiritual faith.

Lin and Wang consulted with their respective supervisors (the president of the Xinmin City Court and the chief prosecutor of the Xinmin City Procuratorate). Both supervisors replied that the recusal request did not meet legal requirements, but did not explain why.

Lin then signaled for the trial to continue. Prosecutor Wang charged Mr. Guan with “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement,” the standard pretext used to frame Falun Gong practitioners.

Both Mr. Wang and his defenders pointed out that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong or labels it as a cult. The defenders further presented two pieces of evidence attesting to that fact. The first one was a list of 14 cults jointly issued in 2000 by the Public Security Bureau, the General Office of the CCP Central Committee, and the General Office of the State Council. Falun Gong was not on the list. The second was Announcement 50 issued on March 1, 2011, by the General Administration of Press and Publication, repealing a previous ban on Falun Gong publications.

Judge Lin kept interrupting the defenders as they discussed the two pieces of evidence. She said that anything anti-country, anti-CCP, or anti-society should not be presented in court and she cut the defenders and Mr. Wang off whenever they mentioned Falun Gong.

Prosecutor Wang only presented photos of Mr. Guan’s Kuaishou account and a chart showing how many videos he reposted on Kuaishou and how many views on each video.

Mr. Guan and his defenders challenged Wang to play the videos in court in order to determine whether they indeed undermined law enforcement or caused harm to anyone. Both Wang and Lin rejected the request.

Mr. Guan expressed his doubts about the exact number of videos he allegedly reposted as the police confiscated his phone and there was no verification of the amount of prosecution evidence against him.

He added that he did not know how to create and edit videos himself. All the videos he reposted were recommended by Kuaishou. Most of the videos had nothing to do with Falun Gong, but about prophecies, reincarnation stories, legends, and poems that advised people to be good. Even the few Falun Gong videos he reposted were totally legal, again because no law has ever criminalized Falun Gong.

Wang next presented an authentication report issued by the Shenyang City Police Department. Mr. Guan countered that the police department had no legal authority to authenticate prosecution evidence as only an independent, third-party agency is authorized to verify such evidence. As such, the police-supplied authentication report should not be admissible.

Lin ignored Mr. Guan and his defenders’ repeated request to cross examine and verify the prosecution evidence in court. She also instructed the clerk throughout the hearing to not record everything the defenders and Mr. Wang said as required by law. She adjourned the session in about one and a half hours.

Mr. Wang’s son wrote an open letter in August 2024 reiterating the key defense statements and called for kindhearted people to help seek justice for his father.