(Minghui.org) Many Falun Gong practitioners are now exercising their legal right to sue Jiang Zemin, the former Chinese dictator, for launching the persecution of Falun Gong, as well as causing great harm and tremendous suffering to practitioners during the past 16 years.
Ms. Wei Caixia filed criminal complaints with the Supreme People's Court and Supreme People's Procuratorate on June 24, 2015, on behalf of her mother Ms. Yang Xiulian and herself.
Below is an except from Ms. Wei's personal account of what she and her mother suffered over the past 16 years since the persecution began.
My mother Ms. Yang Xiulian, in her 60s in March 2000, was arrested for peacefully protesting for the right to practice Falun Gong in Beijing. She was illegally detained for one month in the Hanzhong Detention Center. Her home was ransacked and many Falun Gong books were confiscated.
Then, my mother and I were illegally arrested in 2002 for distributing Falun Gong informational materials, but detained in different cells in the detention center. Guards ordered inmates to physically and mentally abuse us.
My mother was tortured. She had to remain in fixed positions, such as squatting, standing, or bending, for extended periods of time. The inmates also struck my mother in the throat, which made her unable to speak for months. She also developed bronchitis and asthma.
The worst ordeal was sexual assault with a toothbrush. The guards forced her to stand spread-eagled against a wall while four inmates held her four limbs. Two other inmates pushed a toothbrush into her vagina and moved it around.
My mother was sentenced to two years of forced labor in 2003 and taken to the Shaanxi Women's Labor Camp. When she was released in January 2004, she was emaciated and could only move slowly.
The trauma from the torture left her deeply scarred, and eventually robbed her of her life. She passed away on March 28, 2008. She was still being harassed, and her home was ransacked two months before she died.
I was first arrested on March 3, 2000 and detained for 10 days. Officers from the Hanzhong Police Department arrested me at work on March 11, 2002. They also illegally ransacked my office and home. I was detained in the Hanzhong Detention Center for one year.
My mother was given two years of forced labor, and I was given three years in 2003. I was taken to the Shaanxi Women's Labor Camp.
After my release from the labor camp in September 2004, I was repeatedly harassed, arrested, detained, my home was ransacked, and once I was interrogated from morning until 10 p.m.
Specifically, on January 10, 2008, I was arrested. On September 21, 2009, I was taken to the Longjiang Wufeng Brainwashing Center. On October 23, 2012, I was arrested at work and detained in Puzhenzaoshu Village for a month.
My mother stepped on the cultivation path in 1996. Witnessing the benefits that my mother received from Falun Gong, I followed suit and became a practitioner in 1998.
Falun Gong has been of great benefit to me. Not only did I recover from my illnesses, it also helped me understand the true meaning of life.
Before I began to cultivate, my husband committed adultery, so I separated from him and lived in despair. But, once I began to cultivate, I became more compassionate to others, including my husband.
Then, in 2012, my estranged husband was diagnosed with liver cancer. I invited him into my home after he completed his chemotherapy treatments. I took good care of him for three months before he died.
Seeing how I had treated my estranged husband with kindness, my colleagues changed their perception of me and Falun Gong.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.