(Minghui.org) The Dayao County Court in Yunnan tried three Falun Gong practitioners without evidence or their lawyers present on October 29, 2014.
The families of the three practitioners, Mr. Zhu Zhongfu (朱忠富), Ms. He Gaoqiong (何高琼), and Ms. Liu Yijun (刘宜君), jointly wrote a letter of complaint to request their release. So far they have been threatened and given the runaround.
Mr. Zhu's family went to Dayao Detention Center, where he was being detained. The director told them that the guards never beat anyone nor put handcuffs and shackles on the detainees. However, Mr. Zhu told his attorney that several men beat him when he refused to wear the inmate uniform. Mr. Zhu was handcuffed and shackled when he appeared in the courtroom.
When Mr. Zhu's family went to Dayao Police Department, Lu Wenhui (陆文辉) from Domestic Security told the family that he had received their letter of complaint and threatened them. Lu said that Mr. Zhu would have received a lighter sentence, had his daughter listened to him and not hired a lawyer.
The family went to the Appeals Office of Dayao Court. Judge Yu Ping (余平) said that he handed the letter of complaint to the People's Congress. He said that Mr. Zhu's case was still under investigation and refused to give back his car, which was confiscated during an illegal search.
The family received a letter from the Yunnan Police Department on November 30 regarding their complaint. The Department told the family to contact the Yunnan Supreme Court directly, as the case was transferred there on November 20.
The family went to Yunnan Supreme Court on December 1. A judge said that the family should wait for the verdict to come out before arguing about the legality of law enforcement's actions.
The judge said that the lawyer gave up the right to defend Mr. Zhu when he refused to comply with the security check. The family argued that performing a security check on the lawyer was illegal to begin with, and that Mr. Zhu should be released because there was no law banning Falun Gong or defining Falun Gong as a cult.
The judge told them that Falun Gong was a sensitive issue and blamed Mr. Zhu, “Among all the rules you can break, why this one?” The judge also told the family his last name, Wu (吴), and warned them not to create a complaint of what he said or “you will be hearing from me.”
