(Clearwisdom.net) On October 31, 2008, Attorney Li Heping defended Falun Gong practitioner Wang Sanying in the Xinhua District Court, Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province. Attorney Li pointed out that according to Chinese law, there is nothing illegal about the practice of Falun Gong. In fact, it is the persecution that is illegal.

A Minghui website reporter interviewed Attorney Li via telephone. He indicated that the persecution of Falun Gong is an attack on people's conscience and a criminal act that abuses public power.

Attorney Li made it clear that Falun Gong can be considered a religious belief and thus has the legal right to exist. He said, "Since the Chinese Constitution stipulates that people have freedom of religious belief, everything related to religions, including spreading a religion and conducting relevant activities, is legal in my view."

According to information Minghui collected from reports written by practitioners in China, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) courts often cite Article 300 of the Criminal Law as a basis to conduct heavy incarcerations of Falun Gong practitioners. However, as Attorney Li sees it, Article 300 itself violates the law. He said, "There is one sentence in Article 300 defining 'utilizing an evil cult to interfere with law enforcement' as a crime. But 'evil cult' is not a legal term at all as the law has no way to tell what an 'evil cult' actually is. Therefore, it is against the law in itself to define a religion as a cult. Article 300 has violated the Chinese Constitution and I think it should never be included in the Criminal Law."

At the beginning of the persecution, the CCP banned attorneys from defending Falun Gong practitioners. Attorney Li feels that the situation now is much better, "There are some lawyers that can defend Falun Gong practitioners who plead not guilty. The interference from the government is relatively less. But lawyers are still facing some pressure. For instance, those who defend practitioners sometimes cannot renew their licenses and have encountered various troubles. Of course, the interference from the CCP is no longer that obvious. In the past, the police would follow us when we defended practitioners. Now it's much better."

On the afternoon of September 29, 2007, Attorney Li was abducted and held for six hours by several people with unknown identities. He was verbally abused and brutally beaten. The abductors threatened him to either get out of Beijing or just be a lawyer without getting involved in certain things. They took away his portable hard drive and his office key. The hard drive on his desktop computer was reformatted and a lot of data was thus destroyed. It is apparent that the CCP was the mastermind behind this incident. Attorney Li guessed that his abduction must be related to his concerns over the safety of another prominent attorney, Mr. Gao Zhisheng. Gao appealed openly to the leader of the Communist regime three times for Falun Gong practitioners, and was arrested and detained numerous times as a result. Attorney Gao and his family are still under house arrest.

Despite the pressure from the CCP, Attorney Li has no plan to change his principles. He said, "The unfair treatment of Falun Gong practitioners is truly shocking. As a person with conscience, I couldn't face myself if I didn't stand up for practitioners."

Attorney Li expressed his belief that China cannot ever realize "rule of law" if it does not resort to the established legal means to handle Falun Gong.

Attorney Li also feels that the persecution of Falun Gong not only matters to practitioners, but it also hurts all the people that have a conscience. In his words, "[The persecution] severely hurts the dignity of human beings. The unfairness lavished against Falun Gong practitioners has harmed everyone that still has a conscience. If a lawyer still has a conscience or thinks people should have dignity, he must be pained by such persecution and he certainly hopes to end the persecution as soon as possible."

Attorney Li called the persecution of Falun Gong "a criminal act that abuses public power."

Concluding his interview, Attorney Li said, "I hope to see more people pay attention to Falun Gong. The injustice imposed on them is barbaric and unfair, an attack on human conscience and human nature. I feel every Chinese, no matter in what social class or profession, should care about the plight of Falun Gong. Only by caring about the most vulnerable group can you really tend to your own interest. Only by defending the most vulnerable group's rights can you really guarantee your own rights. I wish people didn't think the persecution is just the plight of Falun Gong. In my view, it's the plight of all Chinese people and the entire world. This persecution must end soon and can no longer last."

Trained as a business trade lawyer, Attorney Li has participated in many activities guarding the rights of various groups of people. He appealed for Attorney Gao Zhisheng, whose law license was revoked for his support of Falun Gong. Attorney Li also defended Wang Bo, a student of the Beijing Music School and Falun Gong practitioner.