(Minghui.org) After China's Supreme People's Court announced on May 1, 2015 that courts are required to process all cases submitted by citizens, criminal complaints from Falun Gong practitioners have poured in.

As of the end of February 2016, over 200,000 Falun Gong practitioners and their family members and friends have filed lawsuits against Jiang Zemin, former Chinese dictator who started the persecution of the spiritual practice in 1999. The plaintiffs filed the lawsuits by mail or online using their real names. They ask the Supreme People's Procuratorate to investigate Jiang's crimes in the persecution and the Supreme Court to hold him criminally responsible.

In many places in China, more and more people have learned the facts behind the persecution. They have petitioned to show their support for the practitioners' efforts to bring Jiang to justice.

As of February this year, a total of 1,833 people in Yueyang City, Hunan Province, 1,599 in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, and 519 in Dezhou City, Shandong Province have put down their names and fingerprints to support the practitioners and to report Jiang to the Supreme Procuratorate.

Signatures and fingerprints from residents in Yueyang City, Hunan Province, China.

Signatures and fingerprints from residents in Chenzhou City, Hunan Province, China.

Signatures and fingerprints from residents in Dezhou City, Shandong Province, China.

Background

In 1999, Jiang Zemin, as head of the Chinese Communist Party, overrode other Politburo standing committee members and launched the violent suppression of Falun Gong.

The persecution has led to the deaths of many Falun Gong practitioners in the past 16 years. More have been tortured for their belief and even killed for their organs. Jiang Zemin is directly responsible for the inception and continuation of the brutal persecution.

Under his personal direction, the Chinese Communist Party established an extralegal security organ, the “610 Office,” on June 10, 1999. The organization overrides police forces and the judicial system in carrying out Jiang's directive regarding Falun Gong: to ruin their reputations, cut off their financial resources, and destroy them physically.

Chinese law allows for citizens to be plaintiffs in criminal cases, and many practitioners are now exercising that right to file criminal complaints against the former dictator.