Chinese Communist Party City Director in Qingdao City Encourages Crimes by Issuing Decree to Persecute Practitioners

Although the Chinese Communist Party has no lawful basis for their persecution of Falun Gong, the party director in Qingdao City issued guidelines to all subordinate cities, districts, groups, local offices, and the party directory of Qingdao Armed Police Region, to request them to strengthen their persecution of Falun Gong, thus encouraging people at all levels of government to participate in the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) crimes. The guideline document claimed that it is part of the unified action of central, provincial, and city party directories.

The contents of the document are as follows.

In 2009, Qingdao City is required to "learn from the experiences of the security work leading up to the 2008 Olympics and do their best with preventive measures", which includes:

1. Tightly controlling and monitoring Falun Gong practitioners. The document states, "On sensitive days, make sure that for critical people, there shall always be several people watching them and always keep them within sight," and "strengthen the patrols in and around important areas and spots".

2. The document calls for "strengthening the technical capabilities of prevention, continued improvement of the technical capability of infiltration prevention, coordination with responsible organizations to strictly enforce the regulations that prohibit the sale and installation of satellite TV", and preventing Falun Gong practitioners from watching and spreading the programmes of "New Tang Dynasty TV".

3. The document calls for "maintaining a high pressure stance and rooting out the regional editors and coordinators of the Minghui website [Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net], enhancing the capabilities of information analysis and technical monitoring." The document also called for continued investigation of Falun Gong practitioners who have been forced out of their homes.

4. The document calls for using the "closed campus" or "open campus" style of brainwashing methods to attack the steadfast Falun Gong practitioners, by jailing them and conducting forced brainwashing, followed by fake consolation to hide the crimes.

5. The document calls for persistence in closely monitoring practitioners and attacking them as soon as any sign of them emerges, keeping a high profile and not relaxing, intensifying the investigation of "the harmful qigong organization", and closely monitoring their activities and eliminating them.

6. The document calls for "strengthening PR by focusing on web propaganda, improving the propaganda system of foreign Chinese websites, continued improvement of rapid response and planning capabilities, and further improvement of Chinese web PR outside of the country" in order to sway public opinion.

The Chinese Communist's persecution of Falun Gong has no lawful basis

Despite the fact that the Chinese Communist Party has persecuted Falun Gong for nearly ten years, there is no explanation or basis in Chinese law to support the designation of Falun Gong as a "cult organization". Criminal laws, on the other hand, require that a crime has to be designated by specific laws.

Mr. Mo Hongluo from the Runluo Law Office in Henan Province pointed out in his arguments for Falun Gong practitioners in Licheng District Court in Jinan City, Shandong Province in February, 2009, "If one ignores the Constitution and the law, and only considers issues at the level of the "two highs" (the highest court and the highest Procuratorate), then situations will appear where an action allowed by the Constitution is punishable by laws that are against the Constitution, which leads to cases where a crime committed by the government is not a crime, and a legal behaviour by a citizen becomes a crime."

On the same day, lawyer Li Subin, Deputy Director of the Yitong Law Office in Beijing, published the article "Practitioners of Falun Gong Are Not Guilty According to the Constitution .", which reiterated the principle that crimes must be designated by the law.

Mr. Li said, Criminal Law Chapter 3 states: "Where the law clearly defines a crime, the action shall be punished according to the law; where the law does not define a crime, the action shall not be considered a crime." The "law" here refers to the laws that have been legislated by the People's Assembly or the General Directory of the People's Assembly, and does not include CCP documents such as legal illustrations, notifications, and decisions of courts or prosecutor's offices, not to mention articles on printed stories or speeches of an individual. Therefore such discussions of the court or prosecutor's office about Falun Gong needing to be punished as a crime are against the principle that a crime needs to be classified by the law, and therefore, should be immediately nullified.

Lawyer Li reminded everyone, "Because justice personnel lack understanding of the Constitution, there is no regulation requiring people to respect the Constitution." Occurrences of citizens' religious rights being hampered by law-enforcement organizations are common. Especially on the issue of Falun Gong, their actions seriously violate the principles established by the Constitution granting citizens the freedom of religion. They treat religious behaviour and freedom of expression such as spreading messages, printing religious books, telling people facts, participating in parades and demonstrations, and hanging banners as crimes, which result in many cases of injustice.

Mr. Li further pointed out in his "Practitioners of Falun Gong Are Not Guilty According to the Constitution", "The punishments that were applied to the Falun Gong practitioners were overly harsh and violated the law. Some actions were downright criminal."

Mr. Li pointed out that when he defended practitioner Zhang Yuying in the court session in Licheng District Court, Jinan City, Shandong Province:

"According to the files, the punishment of Falun Gong practitioners includes measures to restrict or deprive their personal freedom such as monitoring, tailing, eavesdropping, home ransacking, arresting, fining, and sentencing to forced labour or prison terms. Taking such measures against a law-abiding citizen who has a religious belief is no doubt violating the law itself. In serious cases one should be held criminally responsible. In the meantime, "converting" or trying to get a practitioner to renounce his beliefs, has no lawful basis. Using such a method to restrict or deprive citizen's freedom is against the law and thus is a crime in itself. The forced labor system is against the Constitution and the legislative laws, and thus has no lawful basis itself. To restrict a citizen's freedom based on a code that is against the Constitution is an overt crime."

In the five years from 2000 through 2005, the justice bureau in Beijing did not collect a single penny for licensing fees or yearly-qualification fees from the lawyers in the cities, counties, and districts under its jurisdiction. On the other hand, the justice bureau in Henan Province collected from the lawyers in the province over 100 million yuan¹. Mr. Li believes that one of the two bureaus abided by the law and the other seriously violated it. Despite his win in the case, when Mr. Li, as a lawyer in Luoyang City, Henan Province sued the justice bureau of Henan Province for collecting attorney's license fees, they sought revenge upon him by revoking his licence. This illustrates the corrupt nature of the current legal environment under the Chinese Communist Party. Mr. Li is currently the deputy director of the Yitong Law Office in Beijing.

Note

1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2009/3/24/197708.html