Ms. Ye Qiaoming and Her Son Threatened by the Fuzhou City 610 Office, Forcing Them to Dismiss Their Lawyers

Police officials from the Fuzhou City 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) and the Domestic Security Division threatened Falun Gong practitioner Ye Qiaoming and her 18-year-old son, forcing them to dismiss the defence lawyers they had hired. Cangshan District Court cancelled the original hearing and rescheduled it for the morning of April 9th. Ms. Ye was not represented by a defence attorney.

Legal Proceedings Cancelled after the Defendant's Lawyers Questioned the Evidence

Ms. Ye Qiaoming works in the sports centre at Normal University in Fujian Province. On the morning of September 16th, 2009, she was arrested at work by officers from the Domestic Security Division of Fuzhou City Police Department, including Zhou Xun and Lin Feng. She was detained in the Fuzhou City No.2 Detention Centre.

Ms. Ye wrote to her relatives twice and asked them to hire a lawyer for her. Because her husband has passed away, her son, who is only 18 years old, represented her and hired two attorneys from Beijing. The lawyers visited Ms. Ye at the detention centre, and both parties signed the assignment agreement.

The attorneys discovered many questionable points when they examined the pertinent records. Ms. Ye was charged with having mailed 2,338 letters, although no letters were included as evidence. The police claimed to have found seven fingerprints on the letters in question and said that six of them were Ms.Ye's. However, they didn't describe from which letters they found the fingerprints, and they didn't present the letters as evidence. This caused the lawyers to suspect that it was a false charge with falsified evidence. Furthermore, it is not against the law for a citizen to mail any amount of letters.

A Cangshan District Court hearing was scheduled for March 4th to hear Ms. Ye's case. The lawyers sent a formal written request on March 3rd to ask the judicial expert for the prosecutor to be present in court. The scheduled hearing was cancelled on March 4th.

Both the Lawyers and Local Practitioners Threatened

On March 5th, after the two lawyers returned to Beijing, they were called to the Beijing Judicature Bureau and warned about their involvement in the case.

At the same time, local practitioners in Fuzhou City also received threats from various sources. On March 4th, many local practitioners went to the Cangshan District Courthouse and waited peacefully to attend the hearing. They left quietly after confirming that it had been cancelled. The atmosphere at the courthouse was very tense that day. The courtyard gate, which is normally open, was tightly closed. Every visitor had to go through a small door in the reception area and pass through a security check. Many police and plainclothes officers were in the reception area. The visitors were secretly photographed. During the following several days, those practitioners were visited by the local police and officials from their residential communities. Police from the domestic security division even went to some practitioners' work units and demanded that the practitioners be put under surveillance. The bottom line seemed to be to prevent the practitioners from attending the hearing.

Ms. Ye Qiaoming and Her Son Were Threatened, Forcing Them to Dismiss Their Attorneys

Step by step, officials at the Fuzhou 610 Office forced Ms. Ye to dismiss her lawyers. Ms. Ye's son was a university freshman. He hired the lawyers for his mother out of his sense of responsibility and his right as the defendant's son. He was told that, if he didn't cancel the agreement with the lawyers, he would be labelled as supporting Falun Gong and his college education would be affected. A week after this threat, he was taken to the police department by officers Zhou Xun and Li Feng. How could a young man endure such mental pressure? He gave in and signed their paper, agreeing to dismiss the lawyers. Then he was forced to persuade his mother to do the same. On April 9th, Cangshan District Court informed the Beijing lawyers, with the letter from Ms. Ye and her son, of the cancellation of their agreement.

No Attorney for the Defendant

On April 9th, without any lawyers present to defend Ms. Ye Qiaoming, the hearing commenced.

The lawyers had suspected that the case against Ms. Ye might be a false charge after reading her case records, and they were even more convinced after the hearing was cancelled on March 4th. They expected the evidence to be confirmed during the hearing. However, after the defendant was forced to cancel the agreement with her attorneys and the hearing was immediately rescheduled, the lawyers concluded that the charges were false and that three parties were involved: the police, the procuratorate, and the court.

Officials involved:
Bao Shaoshen, head of Fujian Province Politic and Law Committee
Wu Baowei, head of Fujian Province 610 Office
Fu Zhaiming, deputy of Fujian Province 610 Office
Niu Jigang, Liu Xihui, and Zhang Xuemo, officials in Fuzhou City 610 Office
Wang Xin, head of Fuzhou Police Department
Zhou Xin and Lin Feng, police officers from Fuzhou Domestic Security Division
Cai Wenjian, judge in Cangshan District Court
Chen Xiaoyan and Chen Junyun, public prosecutors from the Cangshan District Procuratorate

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/4/17/221684.html