Two Cases of Injustice Involving Zhou Yongkang and His Accomplices in Wuhan City, Hubei Province in 2011

Currently there are two legal cases against Falun Gong practitioners playing out in Wuhan City, Hubei Province. The Ministry of the Public Security Bureau, which is now closely monitoring their development, is labelling both cases as high priority.

Case 1: Combined Case of Nine Practitioners

Around April 2011, Zhou Yongkang visited Wuhan. Two weeks later, the Domestic Security Division of Wuhan Police Department launched a mass arrest of local practitioners. At least nineteen practitioners had their homes ransacked and were arrested and sent to a brainwashing centre on April 19th and May 5th, 2011. Under the directive of Hubei Province 610 Office [office specially for persecting Falun Gong], , the brainwashing centre tortured the practitioners during interrogation, attempting to extract “criminal evidence.”

When the Hubei Province 610 Office tried to get the Wuchang District Procuratorate to indict the practitioners, the charges were dismissed because the fabricated evidence they provided did not conform to any laws.

Heeding orders from higher-ups, however, the Hubei Province 610 Office made a second attempt in early October 2011, only to be turned down again.

After the two failures, Hubei Province 610 Office changed its tactic and switched its focus to nine of the practitioners, whom they considered to be key targets of persecution. On December 19th, 2011, they finally succeeded in pressuring Wuchang District Procuratorate to combine the nine practitioners’ cases into one big case and file charges against the following practitioners: Zhang Su, Zhang Weijie, Feng Zhen, Feng Yun, Li Guohua, Xiong Weiming, Xia Yang, Zhu Chunlian and Han Shuhua. Chief Prosecutor Zhang Wei repeatedly refused to meet with the families of the practitioners. He also declined to allow their lawyers to review the case files.

According to insiders, Zhou Yongkang ordered the Domestic Security Division to directly supervise this case. When one family member tried to locate his loved one on the day of the mass arrest, he was told by police officers that there would be a joint action against Falun Gong coming up in the following few days. During the process to assist the arrested practitioners, some local practitioners also learned that “this case is under close surveillance of someone in the central government” and that “this individual demanded these cases be combined into one major case.” The alleged “someone in the central government” referred to Zhou Yongkang. Former Wuhan Politics and Law Committee head Hu Xukun held two hearings to fabricate evidence in an attempt to frame Zhang Su and Zhang Weijie as so-called organizers of Wuhan Falun Gong practitioners.

Case 2: Fude Academy Case

On October 27th, 2011, Wuhan Police Department dispatched numerous officers to raid and close down Fude Academy’s (a private vocational school) main campus in Wuhan and various branches in Wuchang, Hankou, Maodian, and Nanchang. They also arrested founder Yun Xiao and other teachers. That same day, Yun Xiao’s sick father passed away due to the stress. Yun Xiao was charged with operating a school illegally and is still being kept in custody as of today. In mid-February of this year, he was transferred from Hanyang Detention Centre to Wuchang District Detention Centre. When the Domestic Security Bureau of Wuhan Police Department submitted his case to Wuchang District Procuratorate, the latter declined to indict him citing insufficient evidence. Despite the fact that the Procuratorate dismissed the case, the Wuhan Police Department refused to release Yun and also declined to allow him to meet with his lawyer.

According to insiders, this case is also a result of Zhou Yongkang’s involvement and is being labeled as one of the major cases in the nation.

Due to a lack of evidence, the court is unable to conduct trials of the wrongly accused practitioners. Even so, Wuhan City authorities are keeping the practitioners incarcerated.

Who is Zhou Yongkang?

The Epoch Times published an article on March 26th, 2012 on the background of Zhou Yongkang, and it offers an excellent commentary of his ascent and fall in the communist regime. See http://www.theepochtimes.com/n2/china-news/who-is-zhou-yongkang-210734.html for the whole article.

Zhou Yongkang became the Party leader for Sichuan Province in 1999, the very year when former Chinese Communist Party (CCP) head Jiang Zemin launched the persecution of Falun Gong. In order to win the trust of Jiang, Zhou spared no efforts in persecuting practitioners in Sichuan Province. He ordered financial rewards for individuals from prisons, labour camps, and domestic security divisions who were particularly active in torturing and brainwashing captured Falun Gong practitioners. With at least 217 confirmed deaths of practitioners due to torture and abuse, Sichuan Province has one of the nation's most severe human rights abuse records related to the persecution of Falun Gong.

When he was appointed deputy head of the Central 610 Office in November 2001, Zhou brought his Sichuan-style strategies against Falun Gong to a nationwide level. Due to his active participation in Jiang’s campaign of persecution of Falun Gong, Zhou was then promoted to the position of minister of the Public Security Bureau, though he had no experience in the field.

From May 2003 to February 2004, Zhou, in the capacity of Minister of Public Security, appeared in a total of 12 meetings orchestrated to defame Falun Gong and emphasize the importance of suppressing this peaceful meditation practice. In a meeting aimed at major police chiefs in December 2003, he specifically stressed to the attendees that “seriously cracking down on Falun Gong is still the key focus of the Ministry of Public Security.”

After Luo Gan, Secretary of the Politics and Legislative Affairs Committee (PLAC) stepped down in 2007, Zhou was named his successor and granted more authority to intensify the brutality in persecuting Falun Gong.

Zhou is approaching 70 this year and he must retire according to regime's rules. Jiang Zemin, Luo Gan and Zhou are all chief culprits of the persecution of Falun Gong, and they dread the likelihood of retribution. As such, they wanted to find someone who shared their level of brutality to head the PLAC. They picked Bo Xilai, Party head of the province-level city of Chongqing. Bo, however, was removed from his position and placed under house arrest on March 15th, not long after his assistant Wang Lijun, former top police head of Chongqing, sought refuge at the U.S. Consulate in Chengdu on February 6th of this year.

Since the CCP power struggle is still unfolding, Wuhan 610 Office Head Hu Xukun and staff Ren Qiang and Chen Shiguo, Wuhan Police Department Chief and Political and Legal Committee Secretary Zhao Fe are still trying to take advantage of the uncertain outcome of regime infighting to climb up the political ladder by fabricating key cases against Falun Gong practitioners.