The Appeal Of The Parents Of Li Xiaobing And Li Xiaomei

We are the parents of Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei, who were falsely charged with the crime of "doing illegal business" by the court of Dongcheng region, Beijing City. They were sentenced to 6 and 7 years in prison, respectively. The No. 2 middle court in Beijing rejected their appeals and upheld the original decision. We appealed again to No. 2 Middle court in February of this year. On April 21, when Zhang Hongyan, an official of the court, met with us, she told us: "We encourage you to withdraw your appeal, but it looks like you will not do that. We will send your appeal documents to the department in charge, and you can just go home and wait for them to contact you." Seven months have passed and we have not had any response. We have asked them about our appeals many times, and every time we receive the same answer: "Go home and wait to be contacted." We are afraid that we will be kept waiting forever. While we have been waiting, we have sent many letters to officials like Jiang Zemin, Xiao Yang (head of the Supreme Court), Jia Qinglin (Secretary of the Beijing City Commission), and Li Ke (Head of the No. 2 middle court in Beijing). We asked for their help in our letter, and we attached our appeal materials. We nave not received any response from anyone. Both our constitution and our country leaders have clearly indicated that we want to "use the law to govern the country", and "be equal to everyone in the application of the law". However, the obvious injustice to our two daughters is being ignored, with no answer of either yes" or no. Our case has been postponed indefinitely. Both of our daughters are innocent, yet they were arrested, secretly detained, tried, and sentenced. During their custody, someone watched them 24 hours a day, making records of their actions. Except during interrogation, they were not allowed to talk. Their heads were covered with black cloths, and they were treated with many other mental abuses, which have lasted more than a year. Even now, the officers in the prison are still trying to force them to "plead guilty". Because they refuse to do this, even their right to make phone calls to their relatives (which is given to other prisoners like drug dealers, prostitutes, and burglars, etc.) has been taken away. For the same reason, they were forced to work without any credit. They are innocent to start with, how can they "plead guilty"?

For the above reasons, we cannot help but appeal again to our country's leaders and the law enforcement agencies, stating the injustice to our children.

According to the Chinese constitution, article No. 41, "Citizens of the people's Republic of China have the right to appeal, accuse, and disclose to the relevant government agencies regarding to the illegal actions of any government officials". As citizens, we are now accusing the Judges of No. 2 middle court of Beijing of making decisions against the law, intentionally charging our two innocent daughters with the crime of "doing illegal business". We are now appealing to the Supreme Court.

The charge of "doing illegal business" against Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei is untenable for the following reasons:

1. The bookstore business that they owned was a completely legal business, including all the proper paperwork;
2. The books that they sold ranged from natural sciences, social sciences, and literature to arts, etc. Legal publishing companies published all of these books, with standard ISBN numbers. They were all legal books that were confiscated on July 20, 1999)
3. The Falun Dafa books they sold, such as, Falun Gong and Zhuan Falun, together with related audio and video products, were all legal publications before July 20, 1999. They all have the formal ISBN numbers issued by the Department of News and Publication. The books were published by government-owned companies like China Broadcasting and Television Publishing Company and Military Yiwen Publishing Company. Plus, their bookstore was closed in June 1999. All of their activities in running their bookstore had nothing to do with "doing illegal business". How can they be judged guilty and sentenced to years in prison?

The reason we persist in our appealing and accusations is that we not only want justice and a clean reputation for our daughters, but we also want to protect the cleanliness and dignity of our constitution. The crime of "doing illegal businesses" that has been put on our daughters cannot hold. . We hope that everyone is truly equal in front of the law, and that the words "To protect innocent people from being persecuted with the criminal law", "Protect the personal, assets, democratic and other rights" in the Constitution and Criminal Law can be truly applied. We hope that our country can help her citizens lead free and democratic lives with proper law enforcement. We do not want to see the unlawful situation of the Cultural Revolution repeated against our daughters. We care about our daughters, but we care more about the principles of justice and law enforcement.

Parents of Li Xiaobing and Li Xiaomei: Li Yi and Nie Zhen, 12/02/00