(Minghui.org) Ms. Che Ruichun, 82, from Kunming City, Yunnan Province was sent to the Yunnan Province Second Woman’s Prison on July 25, 2023 to serve two years, because she practices Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Che Ruichun, a retired teacher, was arrested on October 3, 2021 and released on bail that night. She was indicted on February 23, 2023 and stood trial on March 27. After she was sentenced on April 21, she filed an appeal, which was rejected on June 2. She had written a motion to have her case reconsidered, but she was taken back into custody in July before she got a chance to submit it.
The local security office ordered her to return 70% of the pension that had already been issued to her between her arrest and her prison admission, citing a policy that bars retirees from receiving pension benefits while serving time (even though China’s social insurance law and labor law have no such stipulations). The remaining 30% was to be her living expenses. It is unclear whether Ms. Che complied with the order. Her pension was completely stopped in August 2023.
Arrested and Released on Bail
Ms. Chen went grocery shopping at a local market on October 3, 2021, and gave a vendor a Falun Gong brochure. The vendor happily took it. Ms. Che then went to Walmart, right across from the market, to buy some bread. She was arrested by a plainclothes officer before she entered the store. The officer very likely spotted her talking to the vendor and followed her to Walmart.
The officer took Ms. Che to the Daguanlou Police Station. When the police took her home, they raided her place, confiscating many of her personal belongings and putting them in a big bag without tallying them or giving her a list of the items. At her insistence, the police didn’t seize the portrait of Falun Gong’s founder or Zhuan Falun Falun Gong’s main book.
The police later returned and took the book and the portrait when no one was home. They also took her phone book.
Ms. Che was interrogated at the police station before she was taken to Xinhua Hospital for a physical exam. She was found to be in poor health and released on bail after midnight that day. Her family told her that the police set the bail at 1,000 yuan, to be good for one year.
One-year Bail Followed by Residential Surveillance
Ms. Che received an “appraisal notice” on September 23, 2022, from the Xishan District Police Department, which oversees the Daguanlou Police Station.
The appraisal notice stated that the police department examined the items confiscated from her home, as well as the Falun Gong brochure she gave the market vendor, and determined that they were “illegal cult propaganda.”
Ms. Che did not acknowledge this because by law, only a third, independent party has the authority to verify and authenticate the prosecution evidence.
On October 3, 2022, Ms. Che and her family went to the Daguanlou Police Station to request the return of their 1,000 yuan bail bond because her one-year bail was set to expire that day. The police used the pandemic and their busy schedule as excuses and refused to return the money or lift the bail.
Ms. Che learned later that the Xishan District Police Department put her on residential surveillance and submitted her case to the Xiahsn District Procuratorate as soon as her one-year bail ended.
Deposed and Indicted
Four people came to Ms. Che’s home to interrogate her on February 16, 2023. When they showed their IDs she noticed two of them were from the Xishan District Procuratorate and the other two from the Daguanlou Police Station.
The two procuratorate staff insisted that Ms. Che committed a crime by practicing Falun Gong, or else they would not have to depose her in the first place. One of them produced a form and asked her to sign it. She noted one question on the form asking, “Have you denied the appraisal opinion by the Xishan District Police Department?” She was never shown the form or asked such a question before the procuratorate staff visited her, but she saw the question had been answered, “No.”
When Ms. Che raised her concern about the validity of the form, the procuratorate staff snatched it back and left without insisting she sign it.
Prosecutor Su Jing indicted Ms. Che on February 23, 2023 and soon forwarded her case to the Xishan District Court, which assigned it to judge Zhu Dandan.
Ms. Che wrote a letter to judge Zhu and explained the procuratorate failed to investigate the case and requested that Zhu drop it. Zhu did not respond.
Sentenced to 2 Years After Secret Court Hearing
The Xishan District Court held a secret hearing of Ms. Che’s case on March 27, 2023, without allowing any spectators to attend. Judge Zhu ignored Ms. Che when she protested the secret hearing. He also requested prosecutor Su be recused from the hearing because the latter failed to correct the police’s violation of legal procedures in arresting and gathering evidence against her.
Prosecutor Su charged Ms. Che with violating Article 300 of the Criminal Law, which states anyone using a “cult organization” must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Ms. Che argued that no law in China labeled Falun Gong a “cult”; hence Article 300 did not apply to her case. Prosecutor Su alleged that the items confiscated from Ms. Che’s home and the Falun Gong brochure she gave the market vendor was evidence that she broke the law and undermined law enforcement.
Ms. Che countered that the confiscated items were all her lawful possessions and caused no harm to any individual or society at large, much less undermining law enforcement. She challenged Su to show the Falun Gong brochure in court and let everyone see which content in it was “illegal.”
Su and Zhu both ignored her. Su then brought up the police department’s “appraisal opinion” and Ms. Che reminded her that the police department as a law enforcement agency did not have any authority to authenticate prosecution evidence as this would cause a conflict of interest.
Ms. Che demanded an acquittal but judge Zhu sentenced her to two years with a 3,000-yuan fine on April 21, 2023. Assistant judges Meng Meili and Yang Haiyan, as well as clerk Wen Xiaolan, participated in the trial.
Appeal Rejected
Ms. Che appealed to the Kunming City Intermediate Court and requested her guilty verdict be overturned and that the state compensate her for the wrong done to her. She also demanded all those involved in her arrest and prosecution be held accountable.
In her appeal, Ms. Che reiterated the key defense statements she made during the trial and she also detailed the content in the Falun Gong brochure, which was used as key evidence against her but was never presented in court.
She said the brochure contained four stories of how people benefited from practicing or supporting Falun Gong. The first story was about a family of three who recovered from COVID by practicing Falun Gong. The second story was about a young man, whose face was deformed due to some medical condition. His face was restored to its original state after he read Zhuan Falun and did the Falun Gong exercises. The third story was about a dying young woman who was saved by saying Falun Gong is good. The last story was about a student, who was habitually truant, and became a better student after some Falun Gong practitioners talked to him about the importance of being a good person. He never skipped school again.
Ms. Che said the stories by no means could be used as evidence against her as they only served to show how Falun Gong benefited people.
The intermediate court ruled on June 2 to uphold her guilty verdict. The presiding judge was Niu Kehui. His assistant judges were Zhao Yong and Li Xiangyun. His clerk was An Dezhen.
Taken Back Into Custody Before She Could Submit Her Motion
After her appeal was rejected, the police repeatedly took Ms. Che to the hospital in June 2023 for physical examinations, but each time she was found to have poor health and the local detention center refused to admit her.
The police seized her again on July 25, 2023, and took her straight to the Yunnan Province Second Women’s Prison, which admitted her without looking at her health reports.
At the time, Ms. Che wrote a motion to have her case reconsidered. She requested that the intermediate court’s ruling be revoked and that her case be retried and that she be acquitted. But she was taken to prison before she got a chance to submit her motion to the intermediate court.
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