(Minghui.org) A Jilin City resident was sentenced to 4 years in prison for filing a criminal complaint against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin for ordering the brutal persecution of Falun Gong that resulted in his past incarceration.
Mr. Liang Baofan, 52, was arrested on June 17, 2015, and tried without the knowledge of his family and lawyer on March 4, 2016.
Upon learning of his prison sentence in early November, Mr. Liang’s wife filed an appeal on his behalf on November 15.
This is not the first time that Mr. Liang has been targeted for his faith. He was first arrested on November 20, 2004 while distributing Falun Gong informational materials. When he refused to disclose his name and address, the police forced him to squat for long periods of time and assaulted him with rubber clubs.
The police sent Mr. Liang to a forced labor camp seven days later for a year. He was given only a meager amount of food and forced to do hard labor.
He still refused to give up his belief and was forced to sit on a small bench for long periods of time without sleep. The guards later put him in a room with the door and windows wide open. They stripped him to his undergarments and forced him to sit on the floor splattered with water. It was November and the water soon froze. The guards watching him wore thick layers of clothes and had to walk around to keep warm.
Mr. Liang’s family never felt safe after he was released. Their fear materialized when he was arrested again in June 2015 for suing Jiang Zemin. They worry that he may be subjected to abuse again.
In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other members of the Politburo Standing Committee and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.
The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners over the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.
Under his personal direction, the Communist regime established an extralegal security organization, the 610 Office, on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.
Chinese law allows its citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.
Related Report:Police Arrest Mr. Liang for Filing a Lawsuit Against Jiang Zemin