(Minghui.org) The Daowai District Court in Heilongjiang Province held a second hearing of a Harbin woman who was arrested in February at a train station.
Her ID had been flagged to mark her as a practitioner of Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline persecuted by the communist regime since 1999. Many of its practitioners are subjected to long-term surveillance, including through cell phones and computers.
The October 29 hearing of Ms. Cai Weihua was held one and a half months after her first hearing on September 12, 2018, in which she testified against the police for forcing false testimony from her by threatening to arrest her son and husband. The judge adjourned the hearing when urged by Ms. Cai's lawyer to initiate the procedure to exclude illegal evidence.
In the second hearing, the prosecutor arranged for two officers in charge of Ms. Cai's case to appear in court. The officers denied threatening Ms. Cai during interrogation. But Ms. Cai insisted that officer Wang Dianbin said to her, “If you don't cooperate with us, we will bring your husband and son here.”
Ms. Cai's lawyer requested that the prosecutor play the surveillance video during the interrogation, but he refused to do so.
The lawyer further argued that no law in China criminalizes Falun Gong and that the Chinese administration of press and publication had repealed its ban on the publication of Falun Gong books in 2011, so the Falun Gong books confiscated from Ms. Cai's home cannot be used as evidence of a crime. He demanded the acquittal of his client.
The judge adjourned the hearing without announcing a verdict.
Previous reports:Harbin Woman Arrested Because of Flagged-ID, Tried with False Evidence
