After failing to go on with the show-trial of the 13 practitioners on 1/16/02 due to pressure from public opinion, the Nanguan courthouse personnel were reprimanded by their superiors, which embarrassed them and made them angry. In order to save face and show their authority, they made preparations to hold another so-called trial of the practitioners. They utilized the governmental apparatus originally meant to uphold justice to start a series of illegal activities in persecuting innocent people. March 5, the day to honour Lei Feng (a Chinese exemplar of high moral conduct in the 1960's), became the day to witness Nanguan court's mistreatment of people. On that day, Changchun residents who happened to pass by the Nanguan courthouse, lawyers involved in the case, and family members of the defendants were eyewitnesses of the despicable governmental behaviour.
The trial date was set as March 5, but the authorities were concerned about the crowd of other practitioners and righteous people coming to support the practitioners on trial. They lined up police officers to keep people away. As early as 5 a.m. on 3/05/02, the front gate of the courthouse was tightly guarded. Several policemen shouted sternly to passers-by, "Go away. Don't stop here!" There were 7 or 8 police cars parked nearby. Two of the cars were the red fire-fighting cars.
By 8 a.m., the number of the police cars parked in front of the courthouse increased to 20 or so. Also so many other red or black patrol cars driven by policemen in uniform or plain-clothes police were here and there on the neighbourhood streets or alleys near the courthouse. In addition, there were 100 plus policemen with some plain-clothes policemen in the crowd. The police cars blocked out the two inlets of the street in front of the courthouse, so that other cars could not pass by and people could not stay near the entrance of the court.
Jiang's followers are growing frenzied as time becomes short. In their eyes, there is no constitution or law. They decided to arrest anyone as long as they could convince themselves that he was a practitioner. Therefore, on 3/05/02, from time to time someone would be taken away from the crowd on the street. The plain-clothes police would question any one lingering nearby or even do arbitrary searching of the person's bag or purse. By 9 a.m., they had arrested 40 or so innocent practitioners. Practitioners refusing to get into the police car would be hit and beaten severely.
Meanwhile, on the third floor of the Nanguan courthouse, an illegal trial went on.
The courtroom only provided 20 or so observing seats. That was obviously for formality's sake only. The court personnel had already screened the list of names of the observers. They only allowed one family member of each of the 13 defending practitioners to be the trial observer. They controlled it by individual registration, door-to-door investigation, and ID double-checking as well as using admission tickets. There were a lot more police guards in the courtroom than observers.
At around 8:30 a.m., the trial started. During the defence’s statement, each and every one of the 13 practitioners presented firmly and clarified righteously the truth to the judges that "Falun Dafa is good! Falun Dafa is righteous! We are innocent!" The family members there were moved to tears. Meanwhile, the judges were getting angry, so they abruptly interrupted the speaking of the defendants and limited the statement to only one or two minutes. While speaking for justice, practitioners Mr. Lu Yan, Mr. Wang Juncheng, and Mr. Yang Guang received police brutality right in the courtroom. Some policemen grabbed their necks, some dragged their hair, and some pushed their heads down into a bending position, so that they would not be able to continue the talk. Lu Yan's wife bravely stood up and condemned the police brutality. Two policemen then took her away. At the end of the day, Mrs. Lu was still missing, and no one knew were they took her. After Mr. Lu's defence, the court announced a recess. The 13 practitioners were led away by an officer and returned after 4 or 5 minutes. Mr. Lu could hardly walk due to the assault in the previous 5 minutes and had to be moved by two policemen. The police even dared to hit and beat practitioners in the people's court and when their family members were around. […]
This illegal trial lasted until after 4 p.m. The observing family members were not allowed to leave the court for lunch but instead given a piece of bread. A court guard escorted them to the restroom as if they were criminals.
Falun Dafa belongs to the whole world. Now people of more than 50 nations who support justice and peace all know about Jiang and his associates' brutal persecution of Falun Gong. They are against such a persecution. Chinese people are awakening to the truth, and they are starting to recognize the inhuman nature of the perpetrators. With new vigour, Dafa practitioners have sent out a wakeup call to the people of the world and appealed to their conscience.
We firmly believe that brutality will end and a peaceful epoch will arrive! The fine future belongs to people with a sense of justice and a good conscience!
Source:
http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/3/17/19951.html
Chinese version available at:
http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2002/3/8/26210.html
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