Dafa Practitioners from Tsinghua University Face Hasty Trial Without Proper Legal Representation

The People's Court of Chaoyang Region, Beijing City announced that on January 9, 2004, a session was to be convened at 9 a.m. to try Yu Chao, Chu Tong and Wang Weiyu from Tsinghua University. Wang Weiyu was being detained at Chaoyang Detention Centre. It is believed that Yu Chao and Chu Tong were also detained there.

According to incomplete data, of the Dafa practitioners at Tsinghua University, at least sixteen have been unjustly sentenced, the longest term being thirteen years.

Yu Chao is 31 years old. He enrolled at Tsinghua University in 1990, majoring in Precision Instruments. He became a network engineer. In 2000, because he displayed a Falun Dafa banner in Tiananmen Square, he was given one year of forced labour; but he was allowed to serve the sentence outside the labour camp. Afterwards, he was forced to leave home to avoid further persecution.

Chu Tong, Yu Chao's wife, is 33 years old and graduated from the Institute of Microelectronics at Tsinghua University with a Master's degree. She was a lecturer in the same institute. On October 27, 1999, she went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for Falun Gong and was brutally beaten by the police. After she was arrested, she was detained in the No. 7 Section of the Beijing City Police Department. She was imprisoned for one and a half years. After she was released from prison, she published a "solemn declaration", expressing her steadfast faith to continue cultivating Falun Dafa. Thereafter, she and her husband Yu Chao were forced to leave their home to avoid further persecution.

At about 6 p.m. on August 13, 2002, seven or eight policemen openly abducted Yu Chao and Chu Tong. When Yu Chao tried to struggle free, he was severely beaten by numerous policemen. Their rented residence was looted. Before this abduction, they had moved, but an informant discovered their whereabouts and reported them. The whole building was sealed off and surrounded. After being seized by police, Yu Chao and Chu Tong were sent to the "Beijing Jurisdiction and Law Centre" by the National Security Department and the "610 Office" where they were persecuted. They were subjected to brutal and cruel torture at the hands of the authorities. Yu Chao would not eat or drink to protest the forced interrogation, brainwashing and severe beatings. He was forced to lay prostrate on the ground, his arms and legs outstretched and tied to wooden planks. He was not allowed to wash or use the toilet. At times he had to excrete in his pants. Yu Chao was attached to the wooden planks for five months, but he never submitted to the pressures imposed on him.

Mr. Wang Weiyu is a 30-year-old postgraduate candidate who studied precision machinery and mechanics. He had received awards including "Excellent Graduate Student," "Excellent Student Scholarship," and the "Phillip's Scholarship," among others. He served as a class leader, group secretary and vice president of the Science Association and the vice-secretary of the Precision Machinery Group and instructor in 1997. He was accepted into the postgraduate candidate programme without examination right after he graduated due to his high achievement. The Tsinghua Police Department arrested him after he went to two Falun Dafa experience-sharing meetings in September and October of 1999. The police forced him to squat for 4 to 5 hours and interrogated him until midnight. Then the school suspended him for more than 4 months. In June 2000, the school suspended him again. On July 22, 2000, the police arrested him without cause while he was in Beijing's Tiananmen Square talking to someone. He was detained for a week without justification. During the second half of 2000, he was forced to leave the campus and did not go home, in order to avoid the persecution. On August 12, 2002, while he was working for his company, the National Security special agents secretly abducted him again.

Around October 2003, the National Security Department detained him secretly for fourteen months following his "data" submission to the Procurate, and with insufficient evidence it was returned to the Public Security Department. Finally, at the beginning of December, it was officially submitted to the court.

The court delayed in appointing a judge till recently. It unexpectedly decided to proceed with the trial on January 9, hoping that in this way the court would avoid scrutiny and attention to the trial.

Tsinghua University Dafa practitioner Xu Zhiguang was also been illegally detained at the Beijing Haidian branch detention centre for close to two years.

Xu Zhiguang, 26 years old, is a graduate student of the class of 1999, studying to receive his doctorate degree in the Department of Precision Instruments and Machinery at Tsinghua University. He was the winner of top scholarships and was once the chairman of the Student Association of Science and Technology.

Having graduated from this undergraduate course, he was exempted from examination and proceeded to specialize as a doctorate research student. On July 25, 1999, he was detained for a day by the Beijing City Public Security Department when he went to appeal and explain the facts about Falun Gong. In October 1999, he was sent home for six weeks for being steadfast in his belief of Falun Gong. He was instructed that he "could not return to university if he were not willing to abandon his way of thinking." In June 2000, he was informed that he would "have to be immediately suspended or expelled from the university if he takes any further action." In April 2001, the university officials sent him to a brainwashing centre against his will, and subsequently expelled him from the university. He lost his housing and became homeless. On April 23, 2002, the police abducted him when he was away from home. After that, he was detained at the Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp in Beijing. He is currently being detained at the Haidian Detention Centre, Beijing. Prior to this, at least sixteen Dafa practitioners from Tsinghua University have been unlawfully sentenced.

At least one person was tortured to death, at least eighteen were sent to forced labour camps, many students and teaching staff were suspended, forced to leave school, detained and brainwashed, and many others were forced to leave home to avoid illegal arrest and further persecution.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2004/1/4/64015.html