(Minghui.org) Mr. Yang Xuegui, a 51-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Lanzhou City, was recently tried and sentenced to five years of imprisonment and fined 2,000 yuan by the Chengguan Court. He had previously been sentenced to eight years for refusing to renounce his faith.
Mr. Yang was last arrested on September 16, 2016. The procuratorate initially sent the case file back to police, but they indicted Mr. Yang after subsequent submissions. He was tried on August 24, 2017, and was sentenced on January 2, 2018.
Mr. Yang was sentenced to eight years of imprisonment in 2002 and monitored upon his release. To spare his family from the communist regime's policy of implication by association, he did not return home.
Nevertheless, Mr. Yang’s mother never stopped her support of his practicing Falun Gong, since she witnessed the recovery of her bedridden person into a healthy man. During the eight years when Mr. Yang was imprisoned, his mother tirelessly petitioned for his release, and she continued to do the same after he was arrested in 2016.
Seeking Justice
Mr. Yang was arrested when he was hanging a banner about Falun Gong near an overpass on September 14, 2016, and taken to a local police station. He was then moved to the interrogation room at the Domestic Security Division, where he refused to answer any questions or sign any documents. He was taken to the Xiguoyuan Detention Center that night.
After his arrest, his mother went to the Chengguan branch of the Lanzhou Public Security Bureau on September 27 to petition for his release.
A police officer told Mr. Yang’s mother that only the Domestic Security Division could resolve this issue. She told his mother to look for Chen Zhikai of the Domestic Security Division and even called him for her. But once she put down her phone, she told his mother that the Domestic Security Division is a secret department and that she did not know its location. His mother was then escorted out of the building. Thus, she hired a lawyer from Beijing.
Lawyer Huang Hanzhong was not allowed to see his client in the detention center on October 8 and 9, 2016. When he called the police hotline for assistance, he was told that Mr. Yang's lawyer had already completed all the required documentation. However, Lawyer Huang had just arrived at Lanzhou, and no other lawyer had been hired.
Lawyer Huang and Mr. Yang's mother went to the Domestic Security Division on October 10, where an older policeman asked for his contact details and his law license to be photocopied. But when he asked the police for their names and contact details, they refused to provide them, citing confidentiality.
Mr. Yang's mother was told to leave when the lawyer asked for Mr. Yang to be released. Lawyer Huang was told that there was a directive from the National People's Congress, but the lawyer knew only of a directive from the Ministry of Public Security. The policeman then claimed that the directive came from the Ministry of Public Security and refused to provide any further information.
Then, the lawyer asked the police to return Mr. Yang's personal items, such as his driver's license and money that had been confiscated during his arrest. He was told that they would be returned after the case was processed and that the case file had been delivered to the procuratorate.
The lawyer later wrote a brief, which Mr. Yang's mother delivered it to the Domestic Security Division that day.
Runaround
Mr. Yang was not informed that his arrest was approved on October 24, 2016.
Mr. Yang's mother went to the court on December 13 to inquire about the progress of Mr. Yang's case. She was told to “come back another day.”
She was told on the morning of December 14 to come back later, as the prosecutor was in a meeting. After returning to the court on December 16, she had to wait to be finally told by the prosecutor that the case had been returned to the Public Security Bureau.
One staff member from the procuratorate later told her “to pick up her son quickly.” However, there was no one in the Domestic Security Division when she went. When she returned to the Domestic Security Division on the morning of December 19, she was told that the person in charge of the case was on vacation and that no one knew where the case file was.
On inquiring at the court about the case location, she was told that the case file had already been returned to the Public Security Bureau. However, staff at the Chengguan Branch Bureau of Lanzhou Public Security Bureau told her that they did not know where the case file could be found.
Related reports:
A Brave, Elderly Mother Shouts, "Free My Son!"
The Persecution of Practitioner Mr. Yang Xuegui in Lanzhou City Prison
Mr. Yang Xuegui Secretly Sent to Brainwashing Center After Eight-year Prison Term Expired
Mr. Yang Xuegui from Lanzhou City Faces Prosecution for Hanging Up Falun Gong Banner
Judge Tries Six People in One Day for Refusing to Give up Their Faith
