(Clearwisdom.net) On February 13, 2006, nine Falun Dafa practitioners were illegally sentenced in Yunnan Province. This is what happened.

On July 2, 2005, practitioners Wang Lan, Sun Yunji, Zuo Lixin, Zhao Yongmei, Zhao Chenyu, Tian Yunpo, Li Junping, Gao Hong, and Mao Danxin, all from Yunnan Province, were traveling to Tibet on vacation. It was the last week of July, and they were traveling through Pomee County in Tibet. Tian Yunpo, Sun Yunji, and Zuo Lixin were pumping gas at a gas station. In chatting with each other, they mentioned how wonderful Falun Dafa is and the facts about the government persecution. The gas station attendants reported them, and the practitioners were detained instantly. The local Pomee police officers took them to the police station and confiscated their car keys for no reason. After the police investigated them, they were taken back to the gas station. Strangely enough, some Dafa material was found in their car and instantly a policeman took out a video camera, which was prepared for the situation, and recorded the scene. The police threatened Sun Yunji and others to claim the material as theirs and searched the car again in order to frame them.

The other six practitioners, meanwhile, were ordering food at a restaurant. When Sun and the other two didn't appear for lunch, they looked for them, finally going to the police station. The director asked them if they were Falun Gong practitioners. After they answered, "Yes," the director flew into a rage, shouting, "I am the one who is capturing you Falun Gong practitioners!" Then all the police officers rushed up in a crowd and roughly seized all six of them. Ms. Li Junping, in her 50s, had her arm seriously hurt and she still has not recovered.

In September, the Procuratorate, through Procurator Zhu Li, brought suit against them. (The document of this suit has been made public separately.) At 9:00 a.m. on February 10, 2006, their trial convened covertly in the Intermediate Court of Kunming City, Yunnan Province. Only very few family members came when they learned the news. Most of their family members never received a notice and were unable to come. Even in such a one-sided situation, the authorities were still lacking in self-confidence. When the court session opened, members of the riot squad and plainclothes officers were everywhere outside the court. At the same time, several policemen were sent to spy on practitioner Tian Yunbo's house.

No facts were presented or laws cited during the trial. The presiding judge, Hou Feng, tried several times to trap the practitioners into confessing that their travel was organized, planned, and arranged beforehand. The practitioners spoke with the force of justice and cited numerous facts to prove their travel was a sightseeing tour. They also asked which rule of the law made one's thoughts a crime? Which rule of law in China made Falun Gong illegal? The practitioners' forceful statements silenced the judicial officers. Flustered and exasperated, they cut off the practitioners in the middle of their testimonies several times. Even more ridiculous, the court assigned each of the practitioners a puppet lawyer. These lawyers were called by the fine-sounding name of "defense lawyers," but they not only did not defend their clients they also tried to frighten and coerce them into give certain responses in order to frame them regarding the "source of the materials," "the process of organizing," and so on. These lawyers were actually spies and accomplices of the court.

When Sun Yunji accused Deqin Detention Center's policeman of illegally beating him, presiding Judge Hou Feng said, "That has nothing to do with this case!" Sun Yunji's more than 40,000 yuan loaned from his working unit, his mini-car, and other private property, which were accused of being "money for organizing and activities and a transportation tool," were illegally withheld and have not been returned. Zuo Lixin's retirement pension has been withheld since last September.

Upon practitioners' righteous testimony on the just grounds of self-defense, the Communist Party's court was in a dreadful rush and didn't know what to do. After one o'clock that afternoon, they had to quickly finish the so-called open trial although no audience was allowed to attend. They claimed the sentences would be made public later. After being checked and examined, the jail sentences handed down from the February 13 trial were:
Wang Lan, four years, Sun Yunji, Zhao Yongmei and Zhao Chenyu, three years, and Zuo Lixin, Gao Hong, Mao Danxin, Li Junping, and Tian Yunbo were sentenced to one and a half years.

Posting date: 4/6/2006
Original article date: 4/6/2006
Category: Eyewitness Accounts
Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2006/2/25/121633.html

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