On July 15, Hebei Gaobeidian Court started the trial of the case of Hebei Dawu Agricultural and Animal Husbandry Group. The group’s founder, Sun Dawu, was charged with provocation, obstruction of public service, gathering a crowd to storm state organs and illegal absorption of public deposits, among other charges. According to the written statement of the defense lawyer, Sun Dawu insisted on his innocence and said, “I am sitting at the defendant’s trial today, who will be at the defendant’s trial in the future? It’s you!” .
According to the trial brief released by the legal team in the Dawu case, the trial ended at 11:42 p.m. on the 18th. At the trial the following day, July 19, Sun Dawu, who had rested for only four hours, still spoke loudly. He had shaved his hair, and the new stubble had grown completely white.
On the “9-14 provocation and nuisance case” allegations, Sun Dawu responded that the family’s powerful Wang Su Xia deliberately set up a stall to block the road, because he did not allow employees to give money to loan sharks such as the village chief. Court investigation to a number of parties also showed that blocking the road from more than 9:00 a.m., at least six hours, the road blocked up to 3 kilometers, Dawu company losses of about 1.6 million yuan, the public security organs will not deal with.
Sun Dawu: “Not only this, are black and white upside down! Originally she committed a crime, blocking traffic, disrupting traffic order, and finally made us a crime? President Xi said that the people are the mountains, we 10,000 employees are not the people?”
Sun Dawu, known as the “peasant hero”, started with 1,000 chickens and 50 pigs in 1985, insisted on speaking up for farmers, running schools and hospitals, and in 2003 released sensitive statements and was sentenced to jail for illegal fundraising. On November 11 last year, the police arrested him and his wife, two sons and daughters-in-law, company executives and 28 other people in one fell swoop.
“Dawu case” alarmed the central government, disguised as a secret trial
Unlike the national debate in 2003, this year’s Sun Dawu case was heard in silence on July 15. The name of the trial is public, but the number of spectators is limited, and they are placed in another room of the courtroom to watch the live video, public security officers at the door to disperse the people wantonly.
Yang Bin, legal director of Dawu Group, said this was a closed hearing in disguise. Only one family member of each defendant was allowed to enter the audience and was in a different room, and those on the trial bench could not see their loved ones at all:.
“From the decision-making level, it should just be at the bailiwick level. But from the perspective of maintaining stability, this case can be kidnapped to Hebei Province as well as Beijing. The relatively high level of stability maintenance means involved is very much in place, alarming the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Propaganda, the public security organs of various places, the judicial administration organs such as the judicial bureaus where the foreign lawyers are located, have sent people to observe the trial. The information blockade is very strong, Dawu case pictures and text basically can not be sent out, (sent) is deleted in seconds.”
The station contacted several members of Sun Dawu’s defense team, but they were not available for interviews. A legal source, who wishes to remain anonymous for security reasons and is closely involved in the case, pointed out that the debate on illegal public deposits will be the climax of the case, “there is no risk, fully capable of repayment. Never owed any customer money for so many years, all cashed out, the people are benefited. For so many years the local government actually acquiesced. Sun Dawu is an idealist, he does not have much money, on a small car. (That) rural area is like a small city.”
Sun Dawu: frying, boiling and roasting the living dead, silent thoughts of Dawu City
In the July 17 court brief, Sun Dawu said, “During the period of residential surveillance, I once asked to go to the detention center because of the unbearable suffering and treatment worse than death, and I went on a hunger strike for three days for this purpose. I asked to see President Xi’s “Thirty Lectures on Socialist Thought” because the Dawu Group is to follow the socialist road of common prosperity, but finally asked the leadership and was not allowed to see it. It was not until they went to work in the first month that I was given an hour of wind. Three and a half months, I saw the sun for the first time.”
In a hundred physical and mental torture, Sun Dawu still stubbornly resist, he wrote a poem in court: the sun, moon and stars are all gone, day and night, blinding long light; six classes of soldiers double post, hard torment steamed and roasted; fate is unpredictable living corpse, forbidden to say anything and stare; suffering faith in, silently miss Dawu City.
Several female defendants said that the designated residence surveillance period of the dark room without windows, the newly renovated smell pungent, more than 5 months only 2 baths, no human dignity. Sun Sanwu (Sun Zhihua) lost 24 pounds in 160 days, did not relieve his bowels for 5 days, got a hernia, and has not been allowed to have surgery. He asked for the exclusion of the interrogation transcript to prevail over the in-court confession, “In there, there is just no hope for people. They let me sign whatever they want, just begging to hurry up and send me to the detention center.”
Sun Fushuo, the second son of Sun Dawu, said he was handcuffed to the interrogation chair for more than 30 hours, his legs swollen, and the statements were made under police pressure. Sun Meng, the eldest son of Sun Dawu and chairman of the Dawu Group, also demanded that false transcripts be ruled out, when he was coaxed by the authorities that he would be released in ten days and a half, with the result that the sentencing recommendation is now sixteen years.
Ji Wei Lian: I want to dig out the window, I want air
For confessions obtained by illegal means such as torture, Sun Dawu’s legal team has submitted an application to exclude illegal evidence. Yang Bin added that the authorities artificially create residential surveillance through off-site jurisdiction. For example, Jin Fengyu, deputy general manager of Dawu Group, has a house in Gaobeidian; Dawu Group has an office in Gaobeidian. The law stipulates that residential surveillance should be carried out at the person’s residence, not in a separate dark room or dark prison.
“The public security authorities knew (Jin Fengyu) that she had a house and took her to have it notarized and sold. We were all particularly shocked. Disguised torture to extract a confession or physical torture, more mental torture, as well as the external environment, formaldehyde odor damage, may be very intangible and difficult to obtain evidence. Lawyers for the illegality of residential surveillance, including the legal supervision duties of the procuratorial authorities, we believe that there is a failure to monitor. The lawyer submitted an application in court, the first is the application for exclusion, all evidence during the period of residential surveillance should be excluded; the second is the illegal handling of the case by the public security organs exposed by the residential surveillance, we demand that the relevant personnel be held accountable.”
The defendant Ji Wei Lian, who suffers from severe depression, said she trembles at the mere thought of the environment in which she refers to her residence. Not only is life worse than death, but words are too pale to describe it.
According to the trial transcripts from the lawyers in the Dawu case, a female caretaker entered Ji Wei-lian’s room and collapsed within 5 minutes. The last 2 days before the doctor gave Ji Wei Lian oxygen bags, “I freaked out I wanted to dig out the window, I wanted to open the door, I wanted air” , “As long as it is not a hard-hearted person, you can not believe it? We do not want to go through the formality, this four-day row non is not going through the formality? The public prosecutor is creating evidence that the defendant cannot cross-examine. Why should the synchronized audio and video recordings of interrogations be submitted not?”
Mobs storming state organs? Suspected of being entrapped by the authorities
Regarding the petition demanded by Dawu employees against the Xushui Public Security Bureau for excessive law enforcement in handling the August 4 land dispute, the team of lawyers wrote that Sun Dawu asked the petitioners to participate voluntarily, limiting the number of people and taking the initiative to avoid rush hour, and the main purpose of the petition was to sue Cui Chao, deputy director of Xushui Public Security Bureau.
Sun Dawu July 17, this cross-examination said, “(the crime of mobbing the state organs) this charge is not established, very clear, we go to the district government, the district public security bureau’s purpose is very clear, and we deliberately avoid the rush hour, for fear of causing bad influence …… you come up with such evidence, is despicable, is framed!”
At the strong request of the defense, the court played on the spot part of the scene video in the afternoon of August 4: the petitioners left the entrance of the agency for a dozen meters, in good order. The chaotic scene was when the special police hid behind the crowd and pushed and pulled at the front of the crowd, the unarmed petitioners were forcibly pulled into the organ, and some were brutally pushed to the ground by the police who tore their clothes.
The lawyer’s team said that this was a typical “entrapment”. After watching the video, Sun Dawu said there was a woman screaming in the back row of the petitioners at the entrance of the organ, and he didn’t know this woman, so he hoped the group would track her down.
Sun Fusuo also said that he did not recognize several people in the crowd wearing black clothes, feeling that plainclothes police.
Yang Bin: “I feel very shocked and surprised. That morning, the local government had actually known that Dawu employees were preparing to petition, and they had prepared well in advance. Peaceful petition and expression of demands is actually a civil right allowed by the Constitution, and did not cause any impact on state organs, before even the doors of the organs did not enter, was pushed in by the police behind.”
July 15 (the sixth day of the sixth lunar month) coincided with Sun Dawu’s 67th birthday, and five grandchildren, the oldest 12 years old and the youngest only 3 years old. They dedicated an elaborate birthday song to their grandfather, whom they had not seen for eight months and who was standing in the dock, to “wish him a happy birthday.”
Yang Bin said they are already de facto legal orphans, the battle is protracted, the trial will last at least twenty days, “I am now worried that it is likely that they verdict have been written. Sun Dawu’s second son Sun Fushuo said in court, no matter how to argue in court today, can not change this ending.”
Recent Comments