Luohe City Court in Henan Province Intimidates Defence Lawyer and Secretly Sentences Practitioner

Name: Zhao Xiang
Gender: Male
Age: Unknown
Address: Zhumadian City, Henan Province
Occupation: Unknown
Date of Most Recent Arrest: May 19th, 2010
Most recent place of detention: Xiping Detention Centre
City: Zhumadian
Province: Henan
Persecution Suffered: Detention, physical constraint, denied visitation

At 2:00 p.m. on May 19th, 2010, practitioner Mr. Zhao Xiang was arrested by officers from the Renhe Township Police Station in Xiping, Zhumadian City, Henan Province, and was detained at the Xiping Detention Centre. In the ten months since, guards have not let his family visit him even once.

When Mr. Zhao was taken to the detention centre, the guards tortured him for ten days and nights. He was handcuffed, his feet were shackled, and he was tied to a cross made of metal poles. If he wanted to use the toilet, he had to be carried by a few people because he was tied to this cross. Therefore, in order to reduce his using the toilet, guards told the inmates to only feed him a very limited amount of food – just enough to keep him alive. On the eleventh day, those inmates thought Mr. Zhao could no longer continue, so they called the guard to take him down from the metal cross.

On October 12th, 2010, the Luohe Court, which operates under the direction of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) notified Mr. Zhao's family that the trial date would be October 15th. Accordingly, his family hired a lawyer to defend Mr. Zhao. However, right before the trial date, the lawyer said that he could not defend Mr. Zhao, saying that the CCP would not allow a non-guilty appeal for Falun Gong practitioners. His family members had no choice but to cancel their contract with the lawyer.

On October 15th, about a dozen of Mr. Zhao's family members went to the court with the intention of attending the trial. However, at the time of the trial, the judge announced that the trial had been cancelled. The judge, Sun Guojun, drove by the entrance to the court and threatened Mr. Zhao's family members, saying, "I have received many text messages sent by Falun Gong. This is not helpful for him. I have reported it to the police bureau and higher court for further investigation."

The trial was held later, around November 15th, and Mr. Zhao was sentenced to four years in prison. He is now appealing to a higher court. The second trial will be held at Zhumadian Middle Court. The person in charge is Li Xiaolong.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/3/24/238016.html