(Clearwisdom.net) On November 18, 1999, Jiangan District Court sentenced Dafa practitioner Mr. Fang Longchao to three years in prison. Fang, an engineer, was working at the Water Conservancy Committee for the Yangzi River and was arrested because he appealed for Falun Dafa through legal channels. When Fang appealed to a higher court ¨C the People's Court of Wuhan City - his appeal was rejected and the original sentence was upheld. He was sent to the Fanjiatai Prison of Hubei Province on July 21, 2000.

At 11:00 a.m. on August 19, 2003, the People's Court of Wuhan City opened a session to hear the appeal from Dafa practitioner Shi Lei who had been sentenced to 11 years in prison. Shi Lei spoke assertively to the judge and told him with a just voice, "You confiscated the truth-clarifying CDs. Without watching the CDs and knowing the contents, on what do you base your sentence?" The judge was embarrassed and could not answer. His voice became lower and lower. Finally they recessed the court session and it ended suddenly without any verdict.

Recently, thirteen judges, including He Changxin and Hu Changyou, who were the formal Wuhan City Deputy Heads for the city court, were formally arrested for accepting bribes. Among them were two deputy heads of the court, three deputy courtroom heads and five judges with division level rank. It was said the total bribes involved were as high as 3,900,000 Yuan (500 Yuan is the average monthly income for an urban worker in China).

These city court judges hid cases, leaked information and committed crimes, together or individually. No matter who was in charge of a case, the monetary interests from the case would be shared among all those who were involved in different areas, including the judge in charge, the heads of the courtroom and the deputy heads of the court. They colluded with the relevant parties, the lawyers and other organizations involved. It was said that Judge Li Juping had accepted 23 bribes at different times. Twelve times out of 23 he shared the bribes with the deputy head of the court, deputy heads of the courtroom including Wang, Zhou and Gao and judge Liu in the same courtroom. He shared the bribes seven times with Zhou. One judge accepted the bribes and would distribute some to those in higher positions and some higher rank officials would share the bribes with people under them.

January 13, 2004