Manipulation of the Criminal Law to Penalize "Cults" Continues in Case of Painter and Popular Musician

February 1, 2009

Continuing a trend in which the PRC Criminal Law is used to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, a Beijing court sentenced a 40-year-old award-winning artist to three years in prison late last year on account of her association with the banned spiritual movement. On November 25, 2008, the Beijing Chongwen District People's Court sentenced Xu Na to three years in prison for "using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law," according to Xu's attorney as reported by the Associated Press (AP) (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune), Agence France-Presse (AFP) (reprinted in Yahoo! News), and Radio Free Asia (RFA) on November 25. The AP reporter spoke with a clerk at the Chongwen court who confirmed that a verdict against Xu was issued, but refused to disclose the details of her sentence.

Continuing a trend in which the PRC Criminal Law is used to persecute Falun Gong practitioners, a Beijing court sentenced a 40-year-old award-winning artist to three years in prison late last year on account of her association with the banned spiritual movement. On November 25, 2008, the Beijing Chongwen District People's Court sentenced Xu Na to three years in prison for "using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law," according to Xu's attorney as reported by the Associated Press (AP) (reprinted in the International Herald Tribune), Agence France-Presse (AFP) (reprinted in Yahoo! News), and Radio Free Asia (RFA) on November 25. The AP reporter spoke with a clerk at the Chongwen court who confirmed that a verdict against Xu was issued, but refused to disclose the details of her sentence.

In an interview with AFP, Xu's attorney indicated that she was convicted on the basis of "possessing and intending to distribute" 53 documents and 8 computer disks containing information about Falun Gong. Xu pleaded not guilty to the charges against her, and in her defense, appealed to Article 36 of the PRC Constitution, which provides for citizens' freedom of religious belief. The verdict was handed down after a 15-minute hearing, which for reasons that are unclear, was closed to some who sought to observe the proceedings, according to a November 26 report by the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC). Xu's lawyer told the AFP that she intends to appeal her sentence.

10-Month Pre-Trial Detention

Xu had been detained by police for 10 months in the lead-up to her recent sentencing. Authorities initially took Xu and her husband, folk musician Yu Zhou, into custody at a police checkpoint while they were driving to their Beijing home after a concert on the night of January 26, 2008. The couple's detention coincided with a pre-Olympics crackdown that resulted in the detention of more than 8,000 Falun Gong practitioners, according to a July 7 FDIC report.

The verdict handed down on November 25 marks the second time in eight years that Xu Na has been sent to prison for her association with Falun Gong. In 2001, Xu was given a five-year sentence for renting a room to Falun Gong practitioners who came to Beijing from other provinces, according to the RFA report. While serving her first sentence, Xu was reportedly beaten, deprived of sleep, force-fed, and tied down in uncomfortable positions for hours at a time, according to the November 26 FDIC report. Falun Gong has been outlawed in China since the Ministry of Civil Affairs issued a decision in July 1999 calling it an "illegal organization" that "harms society."

Manipulation of the Criminal Law

Xu's sentence reflects a broader trend in using the Criminal Law to penalize Falun Gong practitioners. The ill-defined charge of "using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law" is drawn from Article 300 of the PRC Criminal Law and is commonly used to sentence Falun Gong practitioners (for example, see page 96 of the CECC 2006 Annual Report). First inserted into the Criminal Law in March 1997, Article 300 was adopted to provide a legal basis for the government's "anti-superstition" campaign, which had targeted since the early-1990s various religious and spiritual groups deemed "heretical" or "superstitious." Following the commencement of the government's crackdown on Falun Gong in the summer of 1999, this campaign has gradually expanded into a highly-organized, nationwide "anti-cult" operation with a dedicated security force called the 6-10 Office (for more information, see pages 88-91 of the CECC 2008 Annual Report).

The Criminal Law does not precisely define what constitutes a "cult organization" (xiejiao zuzhi). In practice, Chinese authorities have applied the cult designation arbitrarily against religious groups perceived as potential political threats, including Christian and Muslim groups. On October 30, authorities in Neixiang county in Henan province sentenced house church pastor Zhu Baoguo to one year of reeducation through labor for leading an "evil cult," according to a November 18 China Aid Association report. In 2007, an official report published on the Web site of the Jinghe County Political-Legal Committee in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region called for "severe strikes" against "cults" such as Falun Gong and a Muslim group called the "Islam Liberation Party" (for more information, see previous CECC analysis).

The Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued a joint interpretation on "criminal cases involving cult organizations" in October 1999 that outlined vague criteria for designating a "cult organization." Such criteria include "harming society," "deifying" its leadership, "seducing and deceiving" others through "superstitions and heresies," and "controlling" the group's membership. No further details were given to clarify key terms such as "deify" or "control." According to this joint interpretation, activities prohibited by Article 300 of the Criminal Law include, among many other things, the publishing, printing, duplicating, or distributing of publications with "cult"-related content or symbols of "cult organizations."

Xu's Husband Dies in Custody

Yu Zhou died in police custody 11 days after he and his wife were detained, as reported by the Times of London on April 20. In an interview with AFP, Xu's lawyer confirmed that Yu died in police custody. Fans of Yu's band -- Xiaojuan and the Co-Residents of the Valley -- also wrote of Yu's death on Chinese language blogs. Authorities offered conflicting accounts of the cause of Yu's death, initially telling his family that he died of diabetes, and later attributing his death to a hunger strike. His relatives, however, indicated that Yu had no history of diabetes and that results from an autopsy the family demanded were withheld from them, according to a June 11 report from Clearwisdom.net. Xu's lawyer told AFP that "there are suspicions that he was beaten to death while in prison, but so far we have been unable to collect any evidence." Security officials prevented Xu from attending her husband's funeral.

For more information on Yu Zhou and Xu Na, please see the Congressional-Executive Commission on China's (CECC) Political Prisoner Database. For more information on the government's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, please see Section II -- Freedom of Religion -- Falun Gong in the CECC's 2008 Annual Report.