In order to persecute Falun Gong, the evil force has labeled the practitioners who went to Tiananmen Square on February 4, 2000 for celebrating the Chinese Spring Festival as engaged in an 'illegal gathering' "Case 2.04." They declared that the nine practitioners, including Mi Xiaoping, were the organizers. As a relative of one of the defendants, I witnessed the entire process and had some thoughts that I would like to share with you here.
1. Heavily Guarded Court
On October 3, as a relative of one of the "Case 2.04" defendants, I asked Li Jing and Wang Wentao of the Xicheng District Court about the trial schedule and the rules for the relatives' observing. They said, "The case has just been transferred to here. The lawyers need to have some time to prepare. The hearing will not be starting soon. However, the case will be opened to public. The notice regarding the schedule and place will be posted three days prior to the trial. You can come to read the notice yourself. Every Beijing citizens is allowed to witness the court hearing as long as you can get the audit permit." However, on October 10, just after the long holiday of the National Day, the lawyer assigned to my spouse by the court suddenly informed me that the hearing would begin on October 12. I rushed to the bulletin board outside the court. I didn't see any notice. There was no notice posted even on the day of the trial. Each defendant was allowed to only invite one close relative to attend the court hearing. We were all informed individually. What Li Jing and Wang Wentao told us were all lies.
The trial started at 8am on October 12. The government imposed a curfew outside the court soon after 7am. There were police vehicles cruising and plainclothes policemen patrolling. The policemen were guarding the place as if they were facing a formidable enemy. The public transportation was detoured and the bus stops were moved elsewhere. The complaints of the residents could be heard everywhere: "Why are they so afraid of Falun Gong?!" I arrived at 7:30am as scheduled. After the nine relatives all arrived, we passed the security check and were finally seated. The auditing seats were set up temporarily. There were 40 audit seats. In addition to the nine relatives, there were people from the work units, neighborhood committees, and plainclothes agents. The policemen guarded the audit seats and they looked fully on the alert. The secretary of the court repeatedly announced the rules of the court: no photographing, no recording, no talking, etc. Then the chief judge and judges took their seats and called for the defendants to be escorted to the court. The nine practitioners were escorted in, each by two policemen. Five of them were men; another four were women. They were all full of spirit and energy and wearing smiles on their kind faces. I was excited. I applauded to show my respect and called to my spouse. But I was immediately warned to be quiet.
After the trial started, the persecutor began to read the statement of charges. Everyone was listening. Halfway through the reading, we heard noises of chairs knocking against one another. We were surprised and looked over. A young policewoman who had been escorting Liu Jinghang sank helplessly into a chair. The nearby policemen rushed over to help her. But then she fainted onto the floor. This incident greatly disturbed the court order. The policemen all around surged forward and dragged her out of the courtroom. Although the disturbance calmed down, we couldn't help but wonder why it had happened. Did this person have a recurrence of an old illness? It can't be. The court would not let a sick person take on such heavy duties. Did she not have enough energy? It shouldn't be either. Liu Jinghang, whom she was escorting, was a gray-haired old lady almost 60 years old. She had been jailed for 8 months but still stood tall like a pine tree. How come a young policewoman was like that? ... Such miracles often occur. No wonder when the evil force deals with Falun Gong practitioners, they are always terribly suspicious and heavily guarded. Nevertheless it is useless. How pitiful!
In this heavily guarded court, what was unacceptable was that the people witnessing the court hearing were not allowed to even go to the bathroom. Otherwise the audit permit would be revoked. We had to endure from 7:30am until after 12pm. After the young policewoman's accident, they changed guards every half-hour in order to avoid the escorts getting too tired or even fainting. Dozens of people's coming in and out kept disturbing the courtroom.
2. Enforce the law with injustice
During the hearing of these Falun Gong practitioners, the judge with a guilty conscience was very unjust. He allowed the prosecutors to constantly and endlessly attack Falun Gong as a cult, but didn't allow the defendants to speak of the real situation. Even the lawyers assigned by the court to the defendants felt injustice from such obvious partiality. The chief judge reminded the prosecutors: "No need to repeat." But the prosecutors kept on slandering using the same words repeatedly. On the other hand, when the defendant Run Haizhi said: "Falun Gong is not a cult. We take the Fa as the teacher. We do not worship anyone. We have never asked anyone to sing the song of loyalty, or dance the dance of loyalty" (Translator: The song of loyalty and dance of loyalty were performed during Great Cultural Revolution to show loyalty to Mao Zedong). The judge immediately interrupted him.
When Liu Jinghang responded to the prosecutor's slander that she had organized others to attend an experience sharing conference, she said: "Falun Dafa cultivation does not have any organization. It is an individual activity. No one organizes others. No one is organized by others either." The chief judge interrupted her as well. Yang Xiliang explained why he cultivates Dafa and why he went to Tiananmen Square. He indicated that Falun Gong is not a cult that harms people as described by the government, instead it has miraculously saved his life from diseases. He asked the court to show the medical certificate that had already been submitted to the court, but the chief judge rejected him. He sobbed with emotion when he was talking about the mighty virtue of Falun Gong. Those in the audience were all touched by his words. But the chief judge stopped him. When Mi Xiaoping found out that she could give a statement, she wrote a three-minute speech. But the chief judge refused to give her a chance to read it. Li Jie raised her hand several times to ask for a chance to speak, but the chief judge ignored her. The escorts forcibly pushed her arm down. When it was finally her turn, she told the judges: "The police don't allow us to file complaints or go to Tiananmen Square to appeal. Even an experience sharing conference is an illegal gathering. I thought that the court was the only place for us to speak. But you keep taking away our right to speak. Why? If this situation continues, you are the ones who should be brought to trial!" The judge became angry and ordered her to be taken out of the court. After witnessing the court hearing, everyone quietly praised that each cultivator was doing extremely well.
This kind of trial is exactly the same as how the government persecutes Falun Gong practitioners. How can it be justice?
3. Unreliable Testimony
According to the indictment, He Weizhi was charged with being a plotter and instigator for conspiring with foreigners and organizing the gathering during Chinese New Year's Eve. Mr. He was accused of allowing some overseas practitioners to stay at his home and bringing them to the experience sharing meeting. The prosecutor's evidence was a letter from an Australian citizen, Mr. Zhou. He testified that some people had stayed at Mr. He's home and that Mr. He had brought them to the experience-sharing meeting. Mr. He denied firmly that he had brought them to the experience-sharing meeting. Mr. Zhou had gone back to Australia and the evidence could not be verified. The lawyer brought this issue to the attention of the prosecutor. The prosecutor read out another testimony and claimed that He's wife, Zhang Hongjuan, had written the letter. The letter stated that some people had stayed at her home before the Chinese New Year, that many people had come to share experiences at her home, and that some of them mentioned they would go to Tiananmen Square before Chinese New Year's Eve. However Zhang Hongjuan hadn't written this letter and didn't even know that such a letter existed. The policemen had written the letter themselves without Ms. Zhang's permission after they had had a conversation with her. After all, the letter did not provide any evidence that Mr. He had actually brought some people to the experience sharing meeting that had been held at Ms. Li Shuying's home. So the lawyer insisted that the testimony was not enough to prove the charge and they asked for more evidence. The prosecutor said there would be more evidence presented to the court later. The issue was settled by leaving it unsettled. The fact was that those overseas practitioners who had stayed at Mr. He's home left his home on February 1 and 2. They went to the meeting individually by themselves and coincidently ran into Mr. He who was waiting for someone else in front of Haidian Theater. They left there to go to the meeting while Mr. He was still waiting. The purpose of the experience sharing meeting at Li Shuying's home was not to organize "Case 2.04". It was not planned ahead with the "primary criminal of the Case 2.04" as accused either. The contents of the conversation at the meeting were not focused on the gathering at Tiananmen Square on Chinese New Year's Eve. The charges brought by the prosecutor were based on insufficient evidence.
According to the indictment, Li Shuying was also accused of organizing the practitioners to make public disturbance in Tiananmen Square on Chinese New Year's Eve. The testimony shown at the court was from Ms. Tang. The letter said that Ms. Li had called Ms. Tang to invite her to Tiananmen Square on New Year's Eve. Ms. Li denied the charge. She said that she just asked Ms. Tang whether she would go to Tiananmen Square and they could go together if she was going. Besides, both of them were arrested before they arrived at Tiananmen Square. How could they disturb the public order at Tiananmen Square? According to the experience we had, we are wondering under which circumstance this testimony was taken. It was not trustworthy at all.
Almost every defendant was convicted as guilty and sentenced with distorted facts without reliable evidence. Although the lawyers had questioned the issue of the insufficiency and reliability of the evidence to the prosecutors, they did not get satisfactory answers. The court continued on convicting the defendants as guilty and sentenced them according to the charge in the indictments. This was a conspiracy of the Public Security Bureau, Public Procurators, and the People's Courts to persecute the Falun Dafa practitioners and created the most injustice and false cases.
4. Creating Injustice and False Cases
The PRC Criminal Litigation Law clearly states that the Public Security Bureau, Public Procurators, and the People's Courts must process lawsuits base on the facts and the laws. But during the process of the lawsuit of "Case 2.04," it deviated far from the above principles. When the case was filed by the Public Security Bureau, then examined and verified by the procurators and eventually brought to the court, it all deviated far from the principals of the law. Instead, the methods used in the political movements of the past were applied and this had only led to injustice and false cases. The lawsuit was not processed based on the facts or laws but "the imperial sword" granted from the higher government authority. It was alleged in the court that the government had determined Falun Gong as an evil religion and had outlawed the group, so therefore the activities of the practitioners were crimes of evil organizations. They also applied their own arbitrary explanation of the law and sentenced these practitioners to three to seven years in prison according to the No. 300 provision of Criminal Law. The fact was that the government did not take any judicial procedure in determining Falun Gong as an evil religion. Nor did any government documents or documents from the Communist Party declare Falun Gong as an evil religion. The statement "Falun Gong is an evil religion" only came from Jiang Zemin and the special commentator of The People's Daily. What the Department of Civil Administration had outlawed was "The Research Association of Falun Dafa" and "The Falun Gong Organization" but not the Falun Gong cultivation practice itself. The Research Association of Falun Dafa and its organizations ceased to exist in 1996 when it decided to withdraw from the China Qi Gong Association. The key members of the Research Association of Falun Dafa had already been arrested. How could the suspects in "Case 2.04" ever be able to disturb the law from being implemented?
The steps the prosecutors took to reach their purpose were simple. The first step was to associate the practitioner's activities with political conflict; the second was to label the spontaneous and individual activities as organized and planned activities; then the last was to name several active practitioners as the organizers. A prime case was created. "Case 2.04" was created in just this way. They labeled an ordinary event of practitioners celebrating Chinese New Year's Eve in Tiananmen Square as a political event for "Protesting in Tiananmen Square." Then they turned the case into a criminal case in which an "evil religion" disturbed and kept the law from being implemented. They arrested thousands of people and wracked their brains to decide on nine of them as the organizers with five as principal criminals and four as accessory criminals. Most of the nine practitioners did not go to Tiananmen Square on that day. How could they inflict any kind of damage and influence when there was no criminal behavior found in "Case 2.04"?
Since they could not find the facts to support their charge of crimes, they made an issue concerning the experience-sharing meeting. They regarded the ordinary meeting as "organized planning and plotting" and regarded personal experience sharing as "organized instigation." In this way they could apply No. 300 provision of the Criminal Law to sentence the practitioners to long terms of three to seven years. And yet it seemed it was still not enough for them. The activity was decided to be an organized major event across the provinces because some practitioners were from other provinces. They also decided the activity had colluded with foreign forces because there were some overseas practitioners. This made the case appear to be more serious and the sentence could be more than seven years.
Mi Xiaoping, a practitioner from Wuhan, Hubei Province, was determined to be the primary criminal and sentenced to 8 years in prison. Liang Zhaohui was sentenced to 7 years because he was able to browse the Internet. He Weizhi, Liu Jinhang and Li Shuying was sentenced to 3 years as accessory criminals just because they participated in the experience sharing meeting on Feb. 2. Hu Guoping was sentenced to 3 years because of taking photographs in Tiananmen Square. Li Jie was sentenced to 5 years because she was regarded as being stubborn and in contempt of the court.
"Based on the facts and following the principles of the law" was only said instead of being actually carried out during the process of the trial. China signed the "International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights" of the United Nations on October 5, 1998. One of the rules in the treaty is that no one should be forced to admit guilt to charges. But up until today, an individual in China can still manipulate the rules and conduct of the Public Security Bureau, Public Procurators, and the People's Courts, and therefore can produce so many unjust and false cases. It really is a shame.
Nevertheless, it is gratifying to see that the defendants in "Case 2.04" showed no grief or indignation and they did not express any words of protest while facing the extremely unjust treatment; they reasoned peacefully and tried to get the best results. Although they did not accept the sentences, they did not show any grievances nor did they complain about alleged injustice. They knew it was for protecting Dafa and to cultivate themselves. They knew they had chosen the journey of cultivation and they would firmly walk through to the end. They were full of lofty sentiments and magnanimity. Their behavior brought a sense of justice to their family members in the audience. People were encouraged and admired their family members as true and great Falun Dafa practitioners. They released their sadness and dispelled their worries. They volunteered to keep contact with each other. They decided to take the same journey and advance in the same direction as their loved ones.
October 20, 2000
