(Minghui.org) It has been over two months since three Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing were illegally detained in the Beijing No. 1 Detention Center. The police are trying to send them to prison using fabricated charges.
“My wife was taken to the Haidian Police Department on June 9, and the Procutatorate authorized her arrest on July 16. She was transferred to Beijing No. 1 Detention Center the next day. It has been over 50 days, and I haven't received any formal notification of her arrest and detention,” wrote Ms. Gao Chunmin's husband in his letter to the Procuratorate.
He also wrote, “I went to the Haidian Police Department over ten times, and the No. 1 Detention Center four times before I obtained some information about her. She is in her 60s now and she used to suffer scoliosis. Last year, she suffered a fractured right wrist. We are very concerned about her health.”
Bags and Homes Searched Following Unwarranted Arrest
Ms. Liu Guilan drove Ms. Gao Chunmin, Ms. Jia Yue'e and Ms. Qi Qi to visit a sick friend on June 9, 2014. Their car was intercepted by officers from the Xisanqi Police Station, who claimed that someone had reported that they were distributing Falun Gong materials.
Ms. Liu and Ms. Jia denied the allegation and told the police they were on their way to visit a cancer patient.
The police searched their bags and found some banknotes with truth-clarification messages on them in Ms. Liu and Ms. Qi's bags. In Ms. Gao's bag there were 50 empty DVDs with a Shen Yun Performing Arts image printed on the cover. In Ms. Jia's bag there was a Falun Gong book and a few flyers.
The police went to search their homes the next day and found a copy of Zhuan Falun in Ms. Liu's home, a copy of Hong Yin in Ms. Jia's home, and nothing that was connected with Falun Gong in Ms. Qi's home. Since Ms. Gao didn't tell them her name and address, the police couldn't search her home. The four practitioners were detained in the detention center of Haidian Police Department.
Ms. Qi was later released on bail for health reasons.
The police went to search Ms. Gao's house on June 26 and videotaped the process, but they didn't find anything in connection with Falun Gong.
Procuratorate Approved Arrest, Practitioners Transferred to Another Detention Center
Ms. Gao's husband thought she would be released on July 17 when the 37-day term was up. He went to the detention center to inquire and found there was no record of Ms. Gao in the computer, which meant that Ms. Gao was no longer there.
He was later told that the three practitioners had been transferred to Beijing No. 1 Detention Center.
While in the detention center, personnel from the political and legal affairs committee talked with them. The case officers tried a couple of times to seek authorization from the Procuratorate to have them formally arrested, but their request was rejected each time for insufficient evidence.
A police officer called Ms. Gao's husband on July 13 to confirm her address and told him that the detention center wanted to release them under “executing a sentence outside of jail” or “obtain a guarantor pending trial.” But they seemed to have found some “serious evidence” in the past few days and they had now been “arrested.”
It is said that the two case officers in Beijing No. 1 Detention Center refused to meet with the lawyer hired by the practitioners' family members, and only allowed their assistant to talk with the lawyer but did not to give out any specific information.
Police Fabricated Evidence
An inmate who shared the same cell with Ms. Gao Chunmin called her husband around July 20 and said, “After the arrest warrant was read, Ms. Gao repeated many times 'I didn't do those things. They had nothing to do with me'. She refused to sign the arrest warrant and said she wanted a lawyer.”
Ms. Gao's husband later found out with the help of an acquaintance that officers claimed that they had found 20 DVDs on Ms. Gao and another 30 in her home. Accordingly, branch one of the Procuratorate issued an arrest warrant for her.
Ms. Jia's lawyer said his client saw police officers putting things in her bag and they tried to charge them with “organized crime.” All three practitioners denied the charges.
Ms. Gao's husband was very angry that the police officers acted against the law and fabricated evidence. He wrote a letter to Gao Baojing, the prosecutor-general of the Procuratorate, to report the police conduct.
When he went to the Procuratorate to check if they had received his letter, the reception officer told him, “The prosecutor-general has passed your letter onto the investigation court. This is the first time a letter concerning Falun Gong has been handed down for investigation. We shall reply to your letter once the investigation is completed.”
Ms. Gao asked someone to call her husband on the evening of August 1 and told him there was something wrong with her liver and that she wanted to have a lawyer. Ms. Gao's husband hired a lawyer on August 3. The lawyer later found out that Ms. Gao was suffering from cholecystitis.
Her lawyer submitted an application to bail her out pending trial on medical grounds, but received a notice of rejection from the police department on August 8.
When Ms. Gao's husband went to the Procuratorate for more information about the investigation, he was told that the case was still under investigation.
