(Minghui.org) A Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, resident arrested in July 2020 for raising awareness about Falun Gong is now facing prosecution for her faith.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Lin Guichen was talking to a vegetable vendor about Falun Gong on July 12, 2020, when a person nearby snatched the Falun Gong materials she had and threw them to the ground. The police came in no time upon receiving a tip from that person. They brought Ms. Lin back to her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and some informational materials. The officers who ransacked her home refused to show their IDs.
In the afternoon, the police brought a few boxes of Falun Gong books back to Ms. Lin’s home and took pictures of them. They rejected the request from Ms. Lin’s family to confirm whether those books were hers.
On the next day, Zhang Quangui, an officer from Chayuan Police Station, deceived Ms. Lin’s family into signing the search warrant and list of confiscated items they had prepared after the home-ransacking. Her family was told that Ms. Lin would be released if they signed the documents.
Ms. Lin was taken to the Minqing Detention Center on July 14 and then transferred to the Fuzhou City No.2 Detention Center two weeks later. Her family wasn’t informed of the transfer.
Ms. Lin later hired a lawyer to represent her. The lawyer went to the Chayuan Police Station on August 12 to learn more about her case, but the front desk staff refused to reveal the names of the officers in charge.
The lawyer then took pictures of the officers’ roster on the wall in the police station and planned to ask Ms. Lin’s family to help identify the officers who had ransacked her home. As he was taking the pictures, several higher-ups came and stopped him. With the lawyer’s strong demand, he finally got in touch with the officers in charge of Ms. Lin’s case.
After visiting the police station, the lawyer went to the Jin’an District Procuratorate to submit his legal opinion, urging the prosecutor not to approve Ms. Lin’s arrest.
The lawyer wrote that no law criminalizes Falun Gong and that the Chinese publication bureau had already lifted the ban on Falun Gong books in 2011. He added that it was illegal for the police to ransack his client’s home without a search warrant and fabricate photos afterwards with items that may not even belong to his client.
The prosecutor nevertheless approved Ms. Lin’s arrest on August 14. When the police asked her family to sign the approval form, they also tried to get them to sign a newly prepared list of confiscated items. Her family refused to comply.
