(Minghui.org) Police in the city of Shenzhen have refused to release a local man whose case was twice dismissed for lack of evidence by the local procuratorate.
Mr. Chen Zeqi, a software engineer, was home on September 24, 2016, when agents deceived him into opening the door. One plainclothes officer punched Mr. Chen in the chest as soon as he stepped inside. (Mr. Chen, 54, was in increasing pain during his detention and had to be checked out, although he was never told of the examination results.)
Mr. Chen was targeted because he refused to renounce Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline being persecuted by the Chinese communist regime. More than 20 other local Falun Gong practitioners were arrested on the same day.
Without showing a search warrant, the police confiscated Mr. Chen’s computer, Falun Gong books, and other valuables before taking him to Longgang Detention Center.
The Longgang District Procuratorate issued a formal arrest warrant for Mr. Chen 37 days later, without informing his family. He told the prosecutors who interrogated him in the detention center that no law in China says that practicing Falun Gong is a crime and that he should never have been arrested for exercising his constitutional right to freedom of belief.
The prosecutors realized there was insufficient evidence to charge him so they twice returned the case to the police. The police then submitted “supplemental evidence” to the procuratorate on April 21, 2017. Chief prosecutor Xiao Yu is now considering whether to accept police recommendation to indict Mr. Chen.
Mr. Chen’s lawyer asked to see Xiao, who declined a face-to-face meeting, and asked the lawyer to present a written opinion.
The lawyer listed the legal procedures the police had violated in his statement: they never produced a search warrant before ransacking Mr. Chen’s home; they beat Mr. Chen during the arrest; and weeks after the arrest, they produced a fabricated list of confiscated items which, as required by law, Mr. Chen had not reviewed.
The lawyer asked the procuratorate to order the police to release his client immediately.
