While an Elderly Lady Is Tried, Her Family Members Are Beaten by the Police Outside the Court

Name: HU Wangxiang
Gender: Female
Age: Unknown
Address: Dongxihu District, Wuhan City
Date of Most Recent Arrest: 13th July 2010
Most Recent Place of Detention: Wuhan City No. 1 Detention Centre
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei

An elderly Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Hu Wangxiang was arrested and put on trial. When the trial started, her sister and her sons were denied their rights to enter the courtroom, and were made to sit in the public gallery, thus unable to speak for Ms. Hu. Not only that, outside the court, they were beaten and then arrested by the police by orders of the Dongxihu District 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong) Director Cao Bin in Wuhan City, of Hunan Province.

Strict Alert

On November 16th before Ms. Hu was tried by the Dongxihu District Court, many plainclothes police started gathering outside the court. At around 8:30 a.m., more than two hundred police, plainclothes police officers and police assistants had gathered outside the court. Two young police holding their riot guns patrolled in front of the court.

Not Allowed to Attend the Court Session

At 8:30 a.m. Ms. Hu's sister and her two sons wanted to enter the courtroom. Dongxihu District's 610 Office Director Cao Bin directly prevented them from entering the courtroom, saying, "It is the policy to only allow you all to watch the trial on TV outside the courtroom."

Ms. Hu's family member asked Cao Bin: "Is the court acting according to the law, or according to somebody's request?" Cao answered: "As I said, it doesn't matter what you say. It is useless because this is not the place to talk about being reasonable."

Family Members Beaten and Arrested

At around 9:20 a.m. the trial was adjourned. After watching the trial on closed circuit TV, Ms. Hu's sister and her two sons walked out of the court. Running across prosecutor Liu Tao, Ms. Hu's two sons asked Liu why the prosecutor made false accusations against their mother and made her suffer injustice.

Cao Bin shouted: "Arrest them!" Several personnel from the state security department parked in a vehicle and some plainclothes policemen standing nearby suddenly ganged up on Ms. Hu's family members. They kicked and punched them and also shocked them with electric batons.

The beatings caused Ms. Hu's older sister's hypertension to recur very seriously. Ms. Hu's two sons were then taken to the Xinchu Police Station, Dongxihu District, in Wuhan City. Later they were released.

Background

At around 8:30 a.m. on July 13th, 2010 when Ms. Hu was distributing leaflets exposing the persecution and telling people the facts about Falun Gong, she was reported to the police by the Mintian Community Committee in the Jinghe Nongchang area, of Dongxihu District, in Wuhan City. She was arrested by the police from Jinghe Police Station in Dongxihu District. At 6:30 p.m. Dongxihu District 610 Office director Cao Bin ordered four police from the Dongxihu District Police Department to detain Ms. Hu at the Police Department for that night. The next day, Ms. Hu was taken to Wuhan City's No.1 Detention Centre located on Erzhigou Area in Dongxihu District. On July 15th, the authority just issued the "detention notice." After Ms. Hu was detained for fifteen days, instigated by Cao Bin, Ms. Hu was detained as a criminal, arrested, and was put on a trial.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2010/11/18/232654.html