Crimes Committed by Minister of Justice Tang Yijun in the Persecution of Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) July 20 marked 23 years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to suppress Falun Gong in 1999. July 20 this year, Falun Gong practitioners in 38 countries submitted an updated list of perpetrators to their respective governments, urging that those on the list (and their family members) be barred from entry and their assets frozen.

The 38 countries are: the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Belgium, Sweden, Austria, Ireland, Denmark, Finland, Czechia, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Luxembourg, Croatia, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, Malta, Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Israel, Mexico, Chile, and Dominica. Please refer to New List of Perpetrators Submitted to 38 Governments on the 23rd Anniversary of the Persecution of Falun Gong for details.

Tang Yijun, the current secretary of the Party Leadership Group and minister of the Ministry of Justice, as well as member of the Central Political and Legal Affairs Committee, is on the list.

More information about Tang follows:

Full Name of Perpetrator: Tang (last name) Yijun (first name) (唐一军)Gender: MaleCountry: ChinaDate/year of Birth: March 1961Place of Birth: Ju County, Shandong Province

Title or Position:April 2010 – February 2011: deputy secretary of the Ningbo Municipal Party Committee and secretary of the Political and Legal Affaiars Committee of Zhejiang Province.January 2018 – April 2020: deputy secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, governor, secretary of the Provincial Government Party Leadership Group.April 2020 – Present: secretary of the Party Leadership Group and minister of the Ministry of Justice, and a member of the Central Political and Legal Committee.

Main Crimes

1. Formulating and implementing persecution policies and activities targeting Falun Gong

During Tang Yijun’s tenure as minister of Justice, the Ministry of Justice has implemented and formulated several persecution policies targeting Falun Gong.

On March 25, 2020, the website of the Ministry of Justice published “Opinions on Strengthening the Construction of Rural Areas Under the Rule of Law” issued by the Committee for Comprehensively Governing the Country by Law of the Central Committee of the CCP. The opinion clearly stated that it is necessary to severely crack down on rural cult organizations, a label that the Party falsely applies to Falun Gong.

Falun Gong is not a cult, but the CCP and its Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), as well as the Ministry of Justice, cited the Opinion to justify its new round of persecution of Falun Gong. After the Opinion was published, it was circulated to judicial departments at all levels of the CCP, which then introduced various corresponding measures to cooperate with the implementation of the opinion. Although this opinion was issued a month before Tang Yijun became minister of Justice, it was implemented during Tang Yijun’s tenure.

In June 2021, the Ministry of Justice decided to launch a nationwide two-year “Rural Revitalization of the Rule of Law” campaign, which, under the guise of “improving the ability and level of rural governance,” secretly planned and implemented the so-called “Rural Law” to target Falun Gong in accordance with the Opinion.

On August 24, 2021, the Ministry of Justice announced the new “Prison Scoring and Assessment of Criminals Work Regulations,” which took effect on October 1, 2021. For the first time, the newly-revised assessment regulations for prison inmates blatantly classified “Falun Gong” as a “cult.” The regulations openly slandered Falun Gong in item 5 of Article 23, listing the practice of Falun Gong as so-called “failing the assessment standard” and thus giving license to intensified persecution of Falun Gong practitioners illegally detained in prisons for upholding their faith.

For prisoners, the scoring and assessment regulations determine the actual sentences that they are given. Because “‘transformation’ of Falun Gong practitioners” is linked with “assessment scores” and “commutation of sentences,” there have been instances where prisoners are incentivized to cooperate with guards to persecute Falun Gong practitioners recklessly.

The Ministry of Justice’s revision of the “Provisions on the Work of Prison Scoring and Assessment of Criminals” promotes and intensifies the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners who are illegally detained in prison. The number of practitioners who have been maimed and killed as a result of the persecution is high. Tang Yijun is responsible for taking the lead in implementing these policies.

2. The torture of Falun Gong practitioners illegally detained in prisons

In China’s legal system, prisons are supervised by Prison Administration Bureaus, which are affiliated with either the Ministry of Justice or Provincial Department of Justice.

Prisons are key places where the CCP detains and persecutes Falun Gong practitioners. Most of the illegally sentenced practitioners sent to prisons suffer all kinds of physical and mental abuse. The Ministry of Justice and its affiliated Prison Administration Bureaus regularly instigate inmates to torture Falun Gong practitioners in prisons. As a result, the number of practitioners tortured to death, injured, or disabled in prison is high.

From January 2020 to April 2022, for example, at least 278 practitioners died as a result of torture across China. Most of them were detained, persecuted, and tortured in prisons or other detention facilities. Among them, 37 were tortured to death in prison. Untold numbers of practitioners have been tortured, injured, and/or disabled in prison.

The following are a few examples of practitioners who were tortured to death in prison:

1) Mr. Liu Xiyong was a resident of Shihe Village in the Jinzhou District, Dalian City, Liaoning Province. In February 2017, he was sentenced to three years in prison for talking to people about Falun Gong. On April 9, 2018, he was admitted to Dongling Prison in Shenyang City. On April 8, 2021, his term expired, but instead of being released, he was transferred to the Jinzhou District Detention Center in Dalian City. He was then sentenced to four more years in prison, and on September 28, 2021, he was admitted to Dalian No. 3 Prison. On December 9, 2021, he was rushed to Dalian Central Hospital due to his deteriorating health. His family repeatedly asked that he be released on medical parole, but the Dalian No. 3 Prison denied their requests. On December 29, 2021, he died as a result of the persecution at the age of 81.

2) Mr. Lv Guanru was a resident of Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. On July 1, 2019, he was sentenced to seven years in prison by the Ranghulu District Court of Daqing City. Following his arrest, he resisted the persecution many times by going on hunger strikes and was then force-fed. The force-feeding caused heart failure and stomach bleeding. He was sent to the hospital many times to be resuscitated. On July 30, 2019, he was taken to Hulan Prison straight from the hospital. He was later transferred to Tailai Prison in November 2019. Despite his health, Tailai Prison continued to torture him and kept him in a small cell for more than a month. He suffered a cerebellar hemorrhage and died in prison on April 4, 2021, at the age of 69.

3) Mr. Yin Guozhi was from Liujiagou Village of state-owned Bajia Farm in Jianping County of Liaoning Province. On September 26, 2019, he was seized by the police from Bajianfang Police Station in Lingyuan City and Bajia Farm Police Station in Jianping County. He was first detained in Jinzhou Prison and then transferred to Shenyang No. 1 Prison, where he died as a result of torture on May 22, 2022, at the age of 56.

4) Mr. Gong Piqi from Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was the Deputy Chief of Staff of the Shandong Provincial Reserve Antiaircraft Artillery Division, with the rank of colonel, before he retired. On July 20, 2018, he was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison by the Shibei District Court in Qingdao. On April 12, 2021, he died as a result of torture in Jinan Prison, Shandong Province, at the age of 66. His head was swollen and he was bleeding from his ears.

5) Ms. Fu Guihua of Jiaohe City, Jilin Province, was sentenced to seven and a half years in prison by the Lishu County Court of Jilin Province on February 26, 2021. On May 27 that year, she was taken to the eighth division of the Jilin Provincial Women’s Prison. Less than two months later, she died as a result of of torture on July 25, 2021, at the age of 56.

6) Ms. Su Yunxia from Harbin City, Heilongjiang Province, was arrested by Sankeshu Police Station officers in the Daowai District, Harbin City, on September 7, 2016. On March 31, 2017, she was sentenced to five years in prison by the Daowai District Court and admitted to the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison, where she was brutally tortured. Two days before her release date on September 4, 2021, she died at the age of 67.

3. During his tenure in Liaoning Province (January 2018 – April 2020), Tang Yijun implemented the CCP’s persecution policy targeting Falun Gong

Between 2018 and 2020, Tang served as deputy secretary of the Liaoning Provincial Party Committee, governor, secretary of the Provincial Government Party Leadership Group. During his tenure, the incidents of persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in Liaoning Province increased significantly.

According to Minghui.org, in 2018, a total of 663 practitioners in 14 regions of Liaoning Province suffered varying degrees of persecution. Among them, 23 died of torture, 131 were illegally sentenced, 29 were sentenced without trial, 37 were illegally arrested, 176 were illegally detained, 164 were illegally sentenced, 108 were harassed, and they were fined at least 548,000 yuan. [Note: These categories of persecution were made mutually exclusive for reporting purposes. For instance, there was no overlap between sentenced practitioners and arrested practitioners even though those sentenced were usually arrested in the first place.]

According to statistics from Minghui.org, from January to December 2019, 91 practitioners in Liaoning Province were illegally sentenced. Many were also arrested with the oldest being 83 years old. Twelve Falun Gong practitioners died due to the persecution.

4. Persecuting Falun Gong practitioners while serving in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province

During Tang Yijun’s tenure (April 2010 – February 2011) as secretary of the Ningbo Political and Legal Affairs Committee in Zhejiang Province, at least nine local practitioners, including Yu Yongyuan, Li Yaling, and Yue Xiuping, were arrested, two were sentenced to prison, and five to six were sent to a brainwashing center for persecution. Ms. Jiang Xiaoying from Jiujiang, Jiangxi Province, was arrested from Ningbo City and illegally detained for more than three weeks. She was then taken to the Jiujiang Fifth Hospital (a psychiatric hospital) where she was detained and treated as if she was mentally ill.

Conclusion

The above is only a small sample of the persecution of Falun Gong that occurred during Tang Yijun’s tenure in the Ministry of Justice and local governments. In fact, due to the information blockade by CCP authorities, there are many more persecution cases and details that are not known to the outside world. Tang Yijun must be held responsible for these crimes.

Tang Yijun