By Guo Feixiong, published: January 8, 2016
On November 27, a year after the trial of Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng, the Tianhe court in Guangzhou sentenced Guo Feixiong to six years in prison by adding a last-minute charge in order to procure a lengthier sentence. On January 7, 2016, Guo Feixiong filed the following criminal complaint (in Chinese) with the Guangzhou Municipal People’s Prosecutorate against judges involved in the sentencing. – The Editors
Guo Feixiong: A Criminal Complaint
Plaintiff: Yang Maodong (杨茂东), also known as Guo Feixiong (郭飞雄), male, born on August 2, 1966 in Wuhan, Hubei Province. Han ethnicity. University educated. Currently being wrongly held in the Tianhe District detention center in Guangzhou.
Defendant: Zheng Xin (郑昕), presiding judge in the Tianhe District Court, Guangzhou. Judge Zheng made false charges against, and unjustly sentenced, the plaintiff to imprisonment for six years.
Defendant: Luo Cheng (罗成), judge in the Tianhe District Court, Guangzhou. Judge Luo made false charges against, and unjustly sentenced, the plaintiff to imprisonment for six years.
Defendant: Lu Xiao(鲁肖), judge in the Tianhe District Court, Guangzhou. Judge Lu made false charges against, and unjustly sentenced, the plaintiff to imprisonment for six years.
The plaintiff demands that the prosecutors pursue the criminal responsibility of the three defendants for abusing the law to favor their own associates (徇私枉法罪), and sentence the defendants each to a minimum of five years imprisonment.
Facts and reasoning on which this complaint is based:
Guo Feixiong meeting with lawyer in early 2015.
The three defendants comprise the collegiate bench of the Tianhe District Court in Guangzhou in the sentencing of the plaintiff. In trying the case of the plaintiff being falsely accused of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order,” (聚众扰乱公共场所秩序), they willfully circumvented the law in making a decision that was contrary to both the facts and the law. The circumstances were severe, leading the entirely innocent plaintiff, and the individual Sun Desheng, to be unjustly and wrongly sentenced on framed-up charges to six years and 2.5 years imprisonment respectively. The details are as follows:
1) The three defendants identified the plaintiffs’ exercise of free speech and assembly, guaranteed by the PRC constitution (for their participation in an assembly of citizens outside of the offices of the Southern Weekend newspaper, in which they made statements in support of the right to publish freely by the editors and journalists of that newspaper), as the crime of “gathering a crowd to disrupt public order.” Using a trial whose basis directly violates the constitution to pronounce guilty verdicts upon the plaintiffs—that is, pronouncing that freedom of speech is a crime, and that freedom of assembly is a crime—is itself criminal conduct which undermines the constitution and tramples upon the political rights of citizens.
2) Using false and far-fetched evidence, the three defendants determined that the plaintiff was guilty of “gathering a engaged in any disruption of the public order,” while the said assembly and public speeches during the assembly had not disturbed any public order. Moreover, even if the so-called evidence stands, it does not prove that the plaintiff engaged in, or caused, any disruption of the public order. Therefore, the three defendants’ made a decision in deliberate contravention of the facts and the law.
3) In addition to the charges brought by the Tianhe District Procuratorate, the three defendants added to the plaintiff the crime of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” (寻衅滋事). This was a naked criminal act which infuriated the public, profaned and undermined the law in China, and violated the most basic principles of jurisprudence.
4) The three defendants took the true information posted on the Internet by the plaintiff about “flash demonstrations” in eight cities to be evidence of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” This is a case of the three defendants abusing their judicial authority. On page 22 of the judgement of first instance, it says: “Later, he [Guo Feixiong] fabricated false information about the above activities and spread it on the Internet, triggering numerous people to ‘gather around and watch,’ leading to severe chaos in public order.” Here, the three defendants took what was said in virtual Internet space as if it were real physical space, and, at the same time, took behavior that can statutorily only happen in real, physical space, and simply extended it to the Internet, treating the ‘gathering around and watching’ by Internet users the same as if it were people in the real world doing so. They also treated the ideational and thought activities of the people that thus gained the information as “a severe disturbance of public order,” equating the legally-nonexistent “Internet order” to legally-defined “public order,” and on this basis charged the defendant with “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.”
Whatever the recitations from judicial documents or legal explanations provided by the defendants, they have no way of obscuring the fact that they engaged in ideological persecution. And no matter how they attempt to avoid it, the three defendants have no way of concealing that their rendering of this decision constituted the criminal act of “intentionally going against facts and laws in criminal trials to render judgments that misuse the law” (故意违背事实和法律作枉法裁判).
As indicated above, the three defendants are hereby accused of “intentionally going against facts and laws in criminal trials to render judgments that misuse the law,” thus violating the effective enforcement of Article 399 of the Criminal Law of the People’s Republic of China. This constitutes bending the law to favor their own associates, and has resulted in the plaintiff being sentenced to prison for six years, and Sun Desheng being sentenced for 2.5 years. Given the grave circumstances of the case, they should be sentenced for a minimum of five years imprisonment.
Sincerely addressed to: Guangzhou People’s Procuratorate
Plaintiff: Yang Maodong (Guo Feixiong)
January 7, 2016
Attached: The three defendants’ criminal evidence – Decision of Guangzhou Tianhe People’s Court, No. 1255, 2014.
———-
Related:
Lawyers’ Account: Court in China Adds Last-Minute Charge in Heavy Sentence Against Rights Leader Guo Feixiong, China Change, November 27, 2015.
My Final Reply in Court, Guo Feixiong, November 27, 2015.
Activist Guo Feixiong Held 743 Days Without Yard Time, August 21, 2015.
Guo Feixiong, a Civil Rights Hero, by Xiao Shu, January 8, 2015
Guo Feixiong: The Sovereignty of the People – My Conviction and My Dream, November 28, 2014.
Guo Feixiong and Sun Desheng Indictment, July 7, 2015
Chinese original 《郭飞雄：刑事控告状》, translated by China Change.
I understand completely, what this gentleman is saying and what he is trying to get across in filing this criminal complaint aghainst these three so called “judges.” But unfortunately, in all likelihood they are not acting on their own. I’m willing to bet, they are acting orders that came down from much stronger powers higher up. I do pray though, that Mr Guo Feixiong is successful in his legal attempts to regain his freedom. This does show though, that the authorities really have no regard for the rule of law, something they are quite fond of bringing up. If they disregard it, how can they expect any citizen to have respect for the law/authority?
[…] Prominent Dissident Makes a Criminal Complaint Against Three Judges in Guangdong, January 8, 2016. […]