(Minghui.org) A total of 500 Falun Gong practitioners from Datong City, Shanxi Province have filed criminal complaints against Jiang Zemin between May 1 and August 23, 2015, according to reports compiled by the Minghui website.

The practitioners charge the former Chinese dictator with initiating the brutal suppression of Falun Gong and hold him responsible for the tremendous suffering inflicted upon them by his campaign. The criminal complaints were mailed to the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate.

Many of these practitioners recounted how Falun Gong returned them to health and gave them a new outlook on life. Their dream to live a healthier and happier life, however, was shattered when Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide campaign to eradicate the practice in 1999.

Simply for refusing to give up their belief, they were arrested, detained, tortured, and had their homes ransacked and personal belongings seized by the communist authorities. Many also saw their families implicated for their belief, while some were also forced to pay huge fines.

The Datong practitioners who filed criminal complaints include people from all walks of life, including radio announcer, agronomist, and carpet weaver.

Below, we profile a few of these practitioners:

Beaten, Tortured to Death

Mr. Liu Zhibin, nicknamed Liu Jieyun, was tortured to death in Jinzhong Prison, Shanxi Province on July 21, 2004. His death was caused by a severe beating and having boiling water poured over his head for over an hour.

His wife, Ms. Wang Xiuping, was shocked to see her husband's remains, which was covered with cuts and bruises, had handcuff marks clearly visible on his wrists, and showed scars everywhere caused by electric batons and beatings.

Ms. Wang filed the lawsuit for the wrongful death of her husband.

Family Torn Apart

Mr. Jin Biao, 52, worked as an announcer at the Datong Radio Station. He suffered multiple arrests and detentions, and his home was ransacked. Money was extorted from him, he was fired from his job because he practiced Falun Gong, and he was sent to a forced labor camp for his belief. He was once confined in a cage for five months at Datong No. 2 Detention Center in 2004. This torture left him with a deformed hipbone, poor circulation of blood to the bone, and a bent spine.

Torture Demonstration: Iron Cage

Mr. Jin's mother passed away in 2001. His father developed a stroke, degeneration of his brain resulting in lack of movement, and Alzheimer's disease. Mr. Jin's wife could not withstand the constant harassment by the police and residential committee, so she left home to work in a different town to avoid trouble, taking their son so that he would have a quiet environment for study.

Brutal Force-Feeding

At Shanxi Women's Forced Labor Camp in March 2005, guards ordered five drug addicts to force-feed Ms. Niu Lanyun. They dragged her to the prison clinic twice a day, pinned her to the floor, pried open her mouth with a spoon, and held her jaws open so they could shove food down her throat. Her mouth bled, her hair was pulled out and littered the floor. The guards instructed the addicts to gag her with a towel and handcuffed her arms behind her back.

Torture Demonstration: Force-feeding

After 70 days of torture, Ms. Niu's weight fell to 77 pounds. The guards did not want to see her die at the camp and made her family take her home. She spent a month at her home before guards returned her to the camp, where she was tortured for another month and a half.

Another Beating and Force-Feeding

At Shanxi Women's Labor Camp, guards ordered Ms. Ma Yueying to stand still for several days while they continuously kicked her all over her body. They beat her arms and hands with a wooden stick, pulled her hair, slammed her face against a wall, and pinched her throat.

She was also brutally force-fed. Several inmates pinned her to a clinic bed, one jammed 8-inch forceps down her throat, while another used a spoon to pry her mouth open. Ms. Ma vomited and coughed up blood, which splattered on the clinic's walls, bed, and floor.

Ms. Ma's father became ill when he learned that his daughter was tortured in the labor camp. He passed away in 2002. He called out for his daughter in the last moments before he died.

Background

In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.

The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.

Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.

Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.