4/3/2003

Zhao Guifeng, female, detained since April 2001. On December 3, 2002, she was unlawfully sentenced to 15 years in prison by the Chaoyang District Court of Changchun. She has filed an appeal to the Intermediate People's Court of Changchun.

After being illegally detained for one and a half years, on November 10, 2002, Ma Yechi, Liu Yaqian (female), and Li Zhixiu (female) were unlawfully sentenced by the Economic and Technological Development District Court of Changchun. Ma Yechi and Liu Yaqian were given prison terms of fifteen years (the maximum sentence a district court is authorized to hand down), Li Zhixiu was given 12 years. Appeals are now in progress for these cases.

On January 27, 2003, after being illegally detained for one year, Liu Xiuer (female), Zhang Liping (female), and Wang Liping (female) were unlawfully sentenced by the Chaoyang District Court of Changchun, to 12, 11, and 9 years in prison respectively. Appeals are now in progress for these cases.

Lu Xiuqin (female) was unlawfully sentenced to 7 years in prison by the Kuancheng District Court on December 26, 2002. She is currently in the process of appeal.

Zhang Yufen (female) had been subjected to long-term illegal detention; Zhang Fan was illegally detained for over a year.

Other practitioners known to be unlawfully sentenced include: Wang Yuling (female), Yan Huawei, Wang Shuqin (female), Li Xiaoguang, Yang Shumin (female), etc.

In the majority of cases, the above practitioners were sentenced in secret trials and their families were not notified beforehand. During the trial practitioners were physically restrained by their throat, preventing them from speaking on their own behalf. During the show trial, the prosecutor read some pre-arranged statements, and each trial concluded hurriedly in around 10 minutes.

Although the court did ask the practitioners if they wanted to hire any lawyer, in reality none of the practitioner's families were informed. [In China, lawyers are only allowed to plead guilty for Falun Gong court cases by government order] The court claimed phone calls to practitioners' family members could not get through or were not answered. They were afraid of leakage of information which might cause them embarrassment like the Nanguan Court incident (a show trial where Dafa practitioners displayed their righteous thoughts in court. See http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/3/24/20204.html). According to some police, the director of the Nanguan Court had been fired.

Although the court-appointed lawyers did come, none of them dared to plea innocent for the practitioners. They were only able to represent the practitioners if they pleaded guilty. Practitioners therefore respectfully refused their representation. Some practitioners had written their own speeches for the trial, but the speeches were confiscated by the 3^rd Detention Center authorities when their bodies were searched. Practitioners were told that the speeches would be handed to the court but in reality they were not.

The following practitioners had been unlawfully sentenced and transferred to the Heizuizi Female Prison:

Zhou Runjun received a 20 years prison sentence. She was sent to the Heizuizi Female Prison after being tortured by the 1^st Division of police department to such an extent that she developed serious heart problems.

Song Li received a 6 years prison sentence. A Master Degree Candidate in archaeology, Jilin University, she was unlawfully arrested just before her graduation.

Other unlawful sentences include: Xiang Xiaomin -- 12 years, Chen Yanmei -- 11 years, Zhao Jian -- 15 years, Qu Shufang -- 6 years, Zhao Heping -- 6 years, and Liang Shuying -- 4 years.

Recently another group of Dafa practitioners were kidnapped and taken to the 3^rd Detention Center. Mostly of them are women over 50 years of age, and quite a few of elders over 70 years old. They were taken into the detention center straight from their homes. Policemen involved said that this round of arrests was "ordered by the state department." No one was to be allowed into Beijing during the "two meetings" period, and if there was any local practitioner being sent back from the Capital, the policemen from the practitioner's district would be stripped of their uniforms immediately. There were about 40-50 newcomers to the detention center, and the number is still increasing. Some elderly practitioners have spouses who are ill and need to be attended to, some have cancer, some others paralyzed. Police arrested people against their own consciences, for the sake of their job and bonuses. Some practitioners started a hunger strike after being sent here. The 3^rd Detention Center did not release them, on the contrary many harsh means were used on them, handcuffs and shackles were used to tie their hands and feet together, causing extreme pain as well as keeping them unable to look after themselves. Some were tortured with needles piercing into their finger tips, or their face exposed to steam of a caustic chemical solution, causing blisters all around their nose.

Some guards in the 3^rd Detention Center are very vicious. 25 year-old female guard Huo Yan was "Credited and Rewarded" for her effort in persecuting Dafa practitioners. Practitioners who had long been kept in the center unlawfully did not regard themselves as offenders of law and had always refused to wear prison clothing. By the end of November 2002, the center tried to force practitioners into wearing uniforms, almost all practitioners were put into shackles. When the practitioners resisted by hunger strike, the guards stuck needles into their fingertips and exposed them to vapor of caustic chemical solutions. Huo Yan also tortured other detainees in the center who were non-practitioners, in order to incite their hatreds towards Dafa practitioners.

Posting date: 4/16/2003
Original article date: 4/16/2003
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 4/10/2003
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/4/3/47599.html

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