Falun Dafa Practitioners Who Unfurled a Hundred-Metre Banner at Tiananmen Square are Sentenced to 10 Years in Jail

On New Year's Day of 2001, a huge banner stretching almost one hundred metres was unfurled for all to see on the west side of Tiananmen Square. The 18 poems from Hong Yin (Teacher Li's –the founder of Falun Gong-book of poetry) were spaced half a metre apart along the length of the banner. The poems were shining in brilliant golden print. Practitioners from Shandong, Jilin, Beijing, Liaoning, Heilongjiang and Xinjiang held the banner and walked forward slowly. It was a tremendous feat and an impressive sight full of dignity and compassion [...]. At the same time, other practitioners also unfurled over 300 small banners in various places on the square. Frightened, the police started arresting practitioners immediately. They illegally arrested 56 people, two of whom were non-practitioners who had just helped to make the banners. The 7th Division of the Ministry of Public Security tortured and used many cruel methods to interrogate them. On August 27, 2001, they sentenced the practitioners and the two non-practitioners to jail in secret--two were given ten-year terms for this great deed. These actions by the court were without legal foundation, and were against the Constitution and the penal code. In this way, the human rights of all people in China are publicly violated by the police on a daily basis.

The practitioners who got the longest terms were Beijing college student Shao Qiang (male) and Shandong Province Falun Dafa practitioner Qiu Xiuxin (female). Both were sentenced to 10 years in jail. Suo Zhenjiang from Shandong and another practitioner were sentenced to 8 years; Wang Jian from Shangdong and two other practitioners were sentenced to 7 years. The other 47 practitioners were all illegally sentenced to 4 years or 3 years and 6 months. The two non-practitioners are Qi Kun and Qi Lin, two brothers from an art group in Shandong province. They were illegally sentenced to 1 year for making the banners. They have now been released after fulfilling their terms. Until November 2001, all of the 54 Falun Dafa practitioners were being held at Beijing's Dongcheng District Detention Centre. A guard said they would be sent somewhere else and there is no information about their whereabouts now. This is proof that Jiang Zemin and Luo Gan's criminal regime is afraid of the truth and is tormenting innocent people at will.

Source: http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/2/1/18307.html

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2002/1/28/23939.html