On August 2008, police from the Harbin City Heilongjiang Province arrested Falun Gong practitioner Li Feng at her grocery shop. Her family hired a lawyer for her. The lawyer pleaded not guilty and presented convincing evidence of her innocence. However, the court sentenced her to nine years in prison.
Ms. Li Feng is forty-seven years old. Before she started to practise Falun Gong, she suffered from the severe prolapse of lumbar vertebrae. She was unable to look after herself. After she practised Falun Gong, she recovered quickly and enjoyed good health. In December 2000 she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was arrested on December 5th, 2000 and detained for three months.
Because Li Feng refused to give up her belief in the Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance, Wang Liguo, Director of the National Security Division under the Nangang District Police Department, along with Zhou Songbin and Sun Bin, police political instructors, colluded with Liu Hui, Zhang Qiusheng and Wang Xiaodong, police political instructors from the Baojian Road Police Station, and entered Li Feng's grocery shop pretending they were going to buy something. They covered her head with cloth and handcuffed her. They searched her house and confiscated a laptop, a printer and photocopy paper. They also took 5200 yuan1 in bills, on which messages exposing the persecution of Falun Gong were written and which the police recorded on a list. But another 7000 thousand cash disappeared and no policeman admitted that they took it, except that a policeman from the Nangong District Domestic Security Division admitted that he took 500 yuan cash. The remaining 6500 yuan is unaccounted for.
Director of the Nangong District Domestic Security Division Wang Liguo, along with Deputy Directors Huang Yaobin, Sun Binji and Shan Guochen repeatedly interrogated Li Feng, but could not extract the confession they were looking for. Later they had some people that Li Feng didn't know pose as witnesses and presented false evidence.
After she was detained at the Harbin City Second Detention Centre for three months, Nangang District Court opened a session court session for Li Feng on November 26th, 2008.
Li Feng's family hired lawyer Wei Liangyue to defend her. Lawyer Wei was a former director of the Jiaodian Law Firm in Heilongjiang Province. He was forced to resign because he submitted not-guilty pleas on behalf of practitioners. In the annual review in 2009, the Heilongjiang Judiciary Bureau directed by the 610 Office2 threatened that none of the lawyers of the law firm could register as lawyers if Wei did not resign from the director position.
Mr. Wei stated in the defence plea: "The concept of "evil cult" that Article 300 in the criminal law refers to is a legal concept. Falun Gong and evil cults are completely different terms and concepts. Falun Gong is not an evil cult as defined by Article 300 in the Criminal Law. The accusations against Defendant Li Feng also didn't fall into any categories defined in Article 300. Thus, Article 300 does not apply to her."
The defence lawyer also stated that the court should base any decision in claimed 'evil cult' cases on the only four explanations provided by the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate. The above judicial explanations do not mention Falun Gong and do not identify Falun Gong as an evil cult.
So far, only one legal document defines "evil cult organizations," that is, the No. 39 file issued by the Ministry of Police in 2005. This file quoted the names of seven categories (altogether fourteen categories) of "evil cult organizations" issued by the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) Central Office and the General Office of the State Council, which didn't specify that Falun Gong is an "evil cult" either.
Practitioner Li Feng described in the court how she benefited from practising Falun Gong and said that it is not wrong to behave according to Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. She said that she had not committed any crime.
Judge Cheng Shouchang of the Nangang District Court listened to the defence, kept silent for a while and then asked Wang Baolong, the chief Procurator from the Nangong District Procuratorate if he had anything more to say. Wang replied that he didn't have anything to say.
The Presiding Judge Yan Xiaoshuang from the Nangang District Court, Judge Cheng Shouchang, Juror Xu Zhao and Procurator Wang Baolong from the Nangang District Procuratorate knew that the arrest of Li Feng was without any legal grounds. Regardless of the facts, they still sentenced her to nine years in jail.
Li Feng's family filed an appeal to the Harbin Municipal Intermediate People's Court and hired Lawyer Wei Liangyue again as the defence lawyer. Judge Zhang Guanglan from the Harbin Municipal Intermediate People's Court met with Li Feng once and then rushed to a verdict for the second trial, which upheld the original decision.
On April 1st, 2009, Li Feng was sent to the Heilongjiang Women's Prison.
The 610 Office in Harbin City:
Deputy Director Yang Mingqi: 86-451-84675313 (Office), 86-451-84831214 (Home)
Deputy Director Gao Jimao: 86-451-84694190 (Office), 86-451-84820098 (Home)
Leader of the Nangang District Domestic Security Division Wang Liguo: 86-451-87664172 (Office), 86-13354515677 (Mobile)
Deputy Leader of the Nangang District Domestic Security Division Huang Yaobin: 86-451-87664173 (Office)
Judge from the Nangang District Court Cheng Shouchang: 86-451-82723196
Note
1. "Yuan" is the Chinese currency; 500 yuan is equal to the average monthly income of an urban worker in China.
2. "The 610 office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.
Chinese version available at http://minghui.org/mh/articles/2009/7/30/205559.html
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