Jiang Botao Secretly Transferred to Lianjiangkou Prison after Family Appeals

Name: Jiang Botao
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Qitaihe City, Heilongjiang Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: September 22nd, 2009
Most recent place of detention: Lianjiangkou Prison in Jiamusi City
City: Jiamusi 

Province: Heilongjiang
Persecution Suffered: Imprisonment, denied visitation.

Falun Gong practitioner Jiang Botao from Qitaihe City in Heilongjiang Province has been jailed in Qitaihe Prison for more than three months. His family members are not allowed to visit him and recently we heard that Jiang Botao was secretly transferred to Lianjiangkou Prison in Jiamusi City.

Three Falun Gong practitioners, Jiang Botao, Li Xinchun, and Guo Qizhong, were arrested on September 22nd, 2009. On April 1st and 2nd, 2010, a trial was held to charge and sentence six Falun Gong practitioners in the Xinxing District Court of Qitaihe City. The attorney representing the practitioners stated in court that all the police's evidence was inadmissible due to the fact that the prosecutor could not provide any evidence and no witnesses could be produced.

Xinxing District Court officials went to the detention centre on April 30th to announce the unjust sentences to Li Xinchun, Jiang Botao, and Guo Qizhong in secret. All of the practitioners appealed to the city high court. The high court officials told their family members on June 9th, that the verdicts had not changed. The family members visited the high court to see the written verdict on June 17th; however, they were not allowed to enter the court.

A family member of Jiang Botao went to Qitaihe Prison to visit him on October 8th. He was told that Falun Gong practitioners are not allowed any visitors. He then found the warden of the prison who told him that special permission was needed to visit a Falun Gong practitioner. The family member said to the warden, "By law, they are allowed a visitor once a month. Why does the organization which executes the law not follow the laws of the Chinese constitution?" They could not answer.

The family member said, "We want to begin an appeal against Jiang Botaos' sentence but the court official has not given me the written verdict." Four days later the family member came back to Qitaihe Prison on October 12th, and the warden told him that Jiang had been transferred to Lianjiangkou Prison in Jiamusi City.

Jiang Botao's family member tried to submit an appeal for him to the Qitaihe City High Court. In the second half of September, the official of the high court requested a written verdict from the district court. When he finally found the person in charge of the case, he was denied a copy of the written verdict. When he came back to the high court, the original official in charge of the case was gone. Every time the family member pursued an answer to the appeal request he found the officer that was in charge was no longer there.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/10/14/230990.html