Amnesty International USA, July 28, 2017
A judge has asked the prosecutor to collect further evidence for the trial of Falun Gong practitioner, Chen Huixia, for her indictment of “using an evil cult to undermine law enforcement”. Following a court hearing in Hebei province on 12 May 2017 her trial has now been indefinitely adjourned. Arbitrarily detained since 3 June 2016, Chen Huixia was tortured and has had no access to her family for over a year.
A judge has asked the prosecutor to collect further evidence for the trial of Falun Gong practitioner, Chen Huixia, for her indictment of “using an evil cult to undermine law enforcement”. Following a court hearing in Hebei province on 12 May 2017 her trial has now been indefinitely adjourned. Arbitrarily detained since 3 June 2016, Chen Huixia was tortured and has had no access to her family for over a year.
Chen Huxia’s family only found out about the trial less than two days before it was due to be held, in Hebei province, northern China, on 12 May 2017...The court only allowed one family member and a single friend to attend the hearing.
During the three hour hearing, Chen Huixia was twice taken away from the court by the police. On both occasions her defence lawyer was not allowed to accompany her. The lawyer argued in the hearing that the evidence provided by the police were extracted by torture and should be excluded. While not stating that evidence extracted through torture would be inadmissible in court, the judge nonetheless asked the Procuratorate (prosecutor) to collect further evidence and adjourned the trial until further notice. The family has since received no information about Chen Huixia and have not yet been allowed to visit her once since police took her away on 3 June 2016.
In the transcript from an interview conducted in 15 December 2016, only recently obtained by her daughter, Chen Huixia provided the details of how she was tortured. According to her testimony, police strapped her to an iron chair in a “brainwashing centre”, an arbitrary detention facility set up to get Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their belief, from 17 June to 16 July 2016 and did not allow her to sleep for 30 days. When Chen Huixia asked the prosecutor investigating the incident whether the events amounted to torture, she said it did not.
Take Action by September 13, 2017
Take Action by September 13, 2017
