Six Months after the Arrest of a Patent Lawyer, His Family Finally Received the Detention Warrant

Name: Xiong Weiming
Gender: Male
Age: 40
Address: Wuhan City, Hubei Province
Occupation: Electronics engineer
Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 22nd, 2011
Most Recent Place of Detention: Wuhan City Number Two Detention Centre
City: Wuhan
Province: Hubei
Persecution Suffered: Brainwashing, forced drug administration, beatings, torture, fired from workplace, home ransacked, detention

Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Xiong Weiming, a patent lawyer from Wuhan, was arrested on April 22nd, 2011. His family questioned a number of governmental agencies regarding his whereabouts for six months without getting a response.

On the afternoon of October 25th, six months after Mr. Xiong’s arrest, two officers from the Wuhan Police Bureau's First Division delivered the detention warrant to his parents' home. The warrant was dated October 24th and stated that Mr. Xiong was charged with violating Article 300 of the Criminal Code. The police told his parents that Mr. Xiong had been transferred to the Wuhan Number Two Detention Centre on October 24th.

Mr. Xiong’s family asked the police why it took six months to deliver the detention warrant. They wanted to know if this was legal under existing Chinese law, The officers were annoyed and said, “Why do you have to ask?”

Arrested, Home-Ransacked, and Detained in Different Prisons

Mr. Xiong supports his parents, who are in their 70s, and a five-year-old child. He is kind, patient, helpful, and diligent in his cultivation practice.

Mr. Xiong was an electronics engineer. He was strong in his belief in Falun Gong and went to Beijing to appeal for justice for Falun Gong. As a result, he was persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and fired from his job. He later worked as a patent attorney. That profession requires a science/engineering background, profound knowledge of law, and an ability to write reports. His clients and his boss trusted him explicitly and were satisfied with his work.

On the morning of April 22nd, Mr. Xiong didn't show up at work. Instead, three policemen went to his office and ransacked his desk and computer, claiming that he had been arrested and would no longer show up at work. Once his family heard the news, they went to his home and found that it had been ransacked and was a total mess. His computer, laptop, and printer were gone. There was a strong cigarette smell in the room, cigarette butts on the floor, and several empty water bottles. For six months his family asked a number of government agencies where he was without being given an answer, nor did they receive any legal notice. They only heard excuses and were treated rudely.

After providing several excuses, the Wuhan Appeals Office told them, “We received instructions from our superiors that the appeals office does not need to accept Falun Gong cases.” They also said that the Domestic Security Division (First Division) of the Police Bureau was handling the case and no one else had the authority to interfere in it.

The staff at the First Division just kept the family at bay, using all kinds of delaying tactics, and tried to deceive them.

Once Mr. Xiong's family had been told that he was in the Banqiao Brainwashing Centre in Wuhan, they needed some time to locate the brainwashing centre so they could visit him. But the centre refused to allow family visits and claimed that Mr. Xiong wasn't there. They didn't acknowledge that any practitioners were detained in that centre.

The assistant instructor was sent by the residential committee to Mr. Xiong's family several times to demand that they help “transform” [forcibly renounce Falun Gong] Mr. Xiong.

After being arrested, Mr. Xiong was detained at different locations. First he was taken to the First Division of the Police Bureau. Later, he was taken to Beihu Farm in Wuhan. On May 27th, he was transferred to the Banqiao Brainwashing Centre. There he was tortured in an effort to make him renounce the Falun Gong practice. He was deprived of sleep, monitored around the clock—even when he went to the restroom—and exposed to loud noises from several televisions. They might also have fed him unknown drugs in his food or water. Around July 19th, three months after Mr. Xiong had been arrested, the police tried to get an arrest warrant issued but were unsuccessful.

In early October, the Wuhan 610 Office ordered police to combine the cases of nine practitioners, including Mr. Xiong's. They wanted to have the case heard by the Wucang District Procuratorate in Wuhan. They charged the practitioners with violating Article 300 of the Criminal Law. They were hoping to be involved in a big case.

After being told, Mr. Xiong's family made an inquiry at the Wucang District Procuratorate. They were told the case had been referred to the police bureau as it had not met the criteria for charging the individuals with a crime. His family was hoping that he would be released when they received the detention warrant on October 25th. This warrant, late by six months, dashed their hopes.

The government didn't provide any explanation for where Mr. Xiong had been held for the previous six months. They just issued a detention warrant. This was not in accordance with established Chinese law.

Article 300 of the Criminal Law, “disrupting the implementation of the law,” is a vague charge.

According to information gathered from multiple locations, the disappearance of Mr. Xiong was not an isolated case. On April 22nd, more than ten practitioners were arrested in Wuhan. This happened again in May. In each case, legal procedures or notifications were ignored. The practitioners' families weren't told the reasons for the arrests nor the whereabouts of the practitioners. Later, the 610 Office directed the police department to combine the cases of nine practitioners into a single big case. Six months after the arrests, the police officially detained three practitioners.

Persecuted for Many Years

Mr. Xiong worked as an electronics engineer at an electronic company based in Wuhan in 1999. Because of his excellent work performance, he was assigned to the company's Beijing office.

When the CCP started the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20th, 1999, Mr. Xiong was in Beijing. At that time, the police stopped people on the street and asked them if they were practitioners. Mr. Xiong admitted that he practised Falun Gong. He was arrested and taken back to Wuhan. He was not even allowed to pack his clothes. His colleague packed his belongings and brought them to Wuhan.

In August 2000, Mr. Xiong allowed a practitioner who had become homeless to avoid arrest stay in his home. He was followed by plainclothes police. Police told a manager at his company to have him come out and then arrested him. The practitioner that stayed in his home escaped. Mr. Xiong was detained in the Qingshan District Detention Centre in Wuhan for a month and then transferred to the Qingshan District Brainwashing Centre.

In October 2000, Mr. Xiong and a few practitioners were released from the brainwashing centre. He went into hiding. In February 2001 when he went to Tiananmen Square to appeal for justice for Falun Gong, he was arrested and taken back to Wuhan. Then he was detained at the Qingshan District Detention Centre.

Because Mr. Xiong escaped from the Qingshan District Brainwashing Centre, police officers in the Qingshan District, who had been punished due to the CCP's implication policy, hated him and decided to torture him. He was held in the Qingshan District Detention Centre for eleven months. When he became paralysed because of the torture, the guards said that he was faking. The guards also slapped his face with their shoes. He lost hearing in one ear for a while. He had over a dozen large lumps on his body because of being bitten by poisonous insects. The bumps didn't disappear for ten years.

Because he was tortured and unable to move, the guards were afraid of being held responsible, so they tried to move him to another facility. They couldn't find a valid reason for a court case, nor would the forced labour camp accept him, so they sentenced Mr. Xiong to a year of forced labour and had him serve the sentence outside the forced labour camp while being monitored.

After returning home, Mr. Xiong's health recovered, but he refused to write a guarantee statement promising not to do the exercises any longer, so he lost his job.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2011/11/5/248761.html