First Half 2014: 413 Falun Gong Practitioners Put on Trial

During first half 2014, 413 Falun Gong practitioners in China were unjustly tried in courtrooms across the country. The communist law enforcement, including the police departments, Procuratorates, and courts, used a variety of means to interfere with the lawsuit processes. They threatened the family members of practitioners, suppressed their lawyers, and held trials without notifying the lawyers.

In this report, we briefly review the statistics of the trials of practitioners during the first six months as of June 26th, 2014. The statistics are based on the initial trials and verdicts. Data is not included for practitioners who were tried more than once, or who appealed and were granted a second hearing.

Due to the restriction of information in China, details on some trials and verdicts were not available and are therefore not included here.

1. 413 Trials Held in 28 Provinces

Four hundred and thirteen practitioners from 28 out of 31 provinces (including autonomous regions and municipalities) were illegally tried, as shown in Table 1 and Figure 1. No trial data was collected in Hainan Province and the autonomous regions of Tibet and Guangxi.

Liaoning Province ranks first, with 82 trials, with Sichuan second and and Hebei third.

2. 190 Practitioners Sentenced

Between January and June 2014, 190 Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced. One hundred and forty two (74.8% of the total cases) were sentenced to less than five years, 32 (16.8%) were sentenced to between five and seven years, and 16 (8.4%) were sentenced to terms seven years and up.