(Minghui.org) A 52-year-old resident of Jinan City, Shandong Province was admitted to the Shandong Province Prison on August 6, 2024, after losing an appeal against a two-year prison term for his faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Mr. Yang Yong was arrested at home on May 10, 2022, by Yu Dezhao and others affiliated with the Yaojia Police Station. They confiscated his computer, printer, and Falun Gong books and informational materials. The police claimed that he was reported by a man whose home surveillance camera recorded Mr. Yang distributing Falun Gong materials in his apartment building on April 12, 2022. They forced Mr. Yang to pay a 5,000-yuan bond before releasing him on bail.
Officer Yu called Mr. Yang several times in July 2022 and ordered him to report to the police station to sign his criminal detention notice. Mr. Yang refused to comply and insisted that the police dismiss his detention. He later mailed a letter to the police urging them to stop participating in the persecution. He also submitted a request to not be put on criminal detention or to be issued a formal arrest warrant. Upon receiving the materials, the police notified him that they would take him back into custody for criminal detention soon. He then went into hiding and lived away from home.
The police later put the case on hold for a period of time due to repeated local outbreaks of COVID-19. Mr. Yang then returned home.
Officer Yu called Mr. Yang again on February 14, 2023, still intending to detain him. Mr. Yang went into hiding again in nearby Rizhao City, only to be arrested on March 7, 2023, when he was riding with a friend back to Jinan and the traffic police stopped them to check their IDs. He was taken to the Jinan Detention Center.
The Lixia District Procuratorate approved Mr. Yang’s arrest and transferred his case to the Tianqiao District Procuratorate, which, along with the Tianqiao District Court, are designated to handle Falun Gong cases in the greater Jinan region.
Mr. Yang’s family member applied to be his non-lawyer defender in August 2023, but judge Lyu Zhaoke never issued an official response. The family later hired a lawyer for Mr. Yang. On March 21, 2024, the lawyer called the family and delivered a message for the judge, who said that if Mr. Yang’s family member was to become his non-lawyer defender, everything he or she said related to Falun Gong in the court might result in his or her own arrest.
The next day, March 22, the judge informed the lawyer that a virtual hearing of Mr. Yang’s case had been scheduled for March 28. Both the lawyer and Mr. Yang’s family protested the virtual format and demanded an in-person session. The judge rescheduled the hearing for April 7.
During the hearing on April 7, the judge determined that there wasn’t enough evidence to support the charge against Mr. Yang and returned the case to the procuratorate for more evidence. But only three days later, Mr. Yang’s lawyer was notified by the court that another hearing had been scheduled for April 24, when the judge eventually sentenced Mr. Yang to two years.
Mr. Yang appealed with the Jinan City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold the original verdict. His family received a notice on August 12, 2024 that he had been transferred to the Shandong Province Prison six days before.
Shandong Man Gets Two Years for Distributing Falun Gong Materials in Residential Building