Linyi City Court in Shandong Province Holds Secret Trial for Innocent Falun Gong Practitioners

Ms. Deng Liangcun and Ms. Fu Guiying, Falun Gong practitioners from Linyi, Shandong Province, were abducted by police from the Wulibao Police Station on June 6th, 2012; however, their arrest warrants were issued on July 6th. Their family members hired attorneys for them from Beijing. The Lanshan District Procuratorate and Lanshan Police Department attempted to shuffle responsibilities to each other and blocked the attorneys from visiting the practitioners. Lanshan Court secretly put them on trial on October 8th, without notifying their families.

Ms. Deng Liangcun is a fifty-three-year-old resident of Lanshan District, Linyi City. She has been sent to forced labour camps twice for practising Falun Gong, once for a year, then for two years. She was subjected to serious persecution in the labour camp, and continues to be harassed with her home searched even after she was released from the labour camp.

Ms. Fu Guiying is a forty-three-year-old resident of Zhujiawa Village, Junan County. She has been imprisoned twice for practising Falun Gong. After she was abducted this time, Ms. Fu launched a hunger strike and was force-fed. Years of persecution make her look gaunt and old as if she were in her sixties. All her hair has turned grey.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Zheng Wenyuan was also abducted on June 6th. She was taken to a forced labour camp but was eventually released because she couldn't pass the physical examination.

The three practitioners' family members weren't allowed to visit them during their detention in Linyi Domestic Security Division and detention centre.

Ms. Fu's and Ms. Deng's relatives hired two attorneys from Beijing, who braved the storm on September 7th to do paperwork at the Procuratorate and go to the detention centre to visit their clients. However, the detention centre denied their visit request using the excuse that the visitation period had passed.

The two attorneys went to Linyi Detention Centre again on September 20th. They were told they couldn't visit their clients because their cases were under “supplementary investigation”. The attorneys called the detention centre many times between September 29th and September 30th. The detention centre either refused to answer the calls or refused to say anything.

All offices were closed during the long National Day recess. On the morning of Monday, October 8th, the first day of work after the recess, Ms. Fu and Ms. Deng's family members went to Lanshan Court, but were told the person in charge of the case, Li Jianguang, was out for a trial.

When they tried again in the afternoon they learned that the court had secretly put the two Falun Gong practitioners on trial that morning but didn't announce the verdict. None of their family members were notified of the trial.