Show trial against Ding Yuande

Tomorrow, November 28, tea farmer Ding Yuande will have to appear in court in the city of Rizhao in Wulian county, China. “As a Falun Gong practitioner, he is following a path of meditation and cultivation that runs counter to the atheism and materialism of the dictatorial Communist Party of China,“ stated Jasna Causevic, expert on genocide prevention and the Responsibility to Protect at the Society for Threatened Peoples (STP)in Göttingen. “The charges against him are as arbitrary and absurd as the circumstances of his arrest. The Communist regime is aware that there is no basis for this under Chinese law. The pseudo-legal farce is part of a repressive campaign against Falun Gong practitioners, which the Chinese government has been following through with for the past 24 .” 

Early in the morning of May 12, 2023, the day before the annual World Falun Dafa Day on May 13, plainclothes police stormed the tea plantation of the couple Ding Yuande and Ma Ruimei, both Falun Gong practitioners, in the village Yanjiazhuang, near the city of Rizhao in the Chinese province of Shandong. In the course of the illegal house search, they found books on Falun Gong and handouts about the brutal campaign against the meditation movement since 1999. After their arrest, there was no sign of life from the Chinese couple for two weeks. Around 70 other Falun Gong practitioners affected by the wave of arrests. After an international outcry from various human rights organizations and politicians, Mrs Ma was released under conditions on May 24, 2023, and she has been under strict surveillance ever since. Ding Yuande, however, was transferred from the local police station to the detention center in Rhizao on June 13, where he is still locked up. If he is finally convicted, he will face brutal torture and a lack of medical treatment in custody.

On the occasion of the upcoming EU-China Summit in Beijing on December 7 and 8, the STP demands the European Union and, in particular, the German Federal Government, to bring about concrete sanctions – including measures of criminal prosecution against individuals and companies participating in the decades-long crimes against Falun Gong practitioners. The sanctions could include the denial of visas, freezing of assets, expulsion from EU territory, criminal prosecution, or international criminal charges. 

According to Article 18 of the Declaration of Human Rights, everyone “…shall have the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. This right shall include freedom [...] either individually or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in worship, observance, practice and teaching.”