Franklin Wolf | Commissioner on the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom | China Aid Advisory Board website
Reflections from Pastor John Cao is a series of poetry and writings from the recently released Chinese Christian prisoner of conscience exclusively published by ChinaAid. The piece below was written on April 23, 2024 and has been minimally edited for clarity. To read more of Pastor John Cao’s poetry, one can purchase the collection written while he was imprisoned, Living Lyrics: Poems from Prison.
"It may seem that a person being convicted and sentenced is solely decided by the judge, but that is not the case. Based on my observations, in fact, there are at least five aspects of power involved in a case."
"The first aspect of power is the judge who appears to play the leading role. After a person is sentenced to a term of imprisonment, the judge signs the verdict to indicate that the sentence was made by the judge. So the first aspect of power is the judge and the judge’s supervisors."
"The second aspect of power is the convicted person themselves and their lawyer. Do they agree with the judge’s verdict? During my imprisonment, I met He Xueguang. Mr. He was a farmer, illiterate, and could only write his own name. At the age of 26, he was accused of murdering someone, and the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment. But Mr. He insisted on his innocence."
"A police officer in Kunming Prison told me that in his 20 years of service, he had only seen one case of wrongful conviction, and that was the He Xueguang’s case. I told the police officer that he had actually seen a second case of wrongful conviction, and that was my case. To this day, I absolutely do not agree with or accept the charges the court has given me."
"In Kunming Prison, I know of at least 10 cases where the parties involved insist that they did not commit the crimes determined by the judge. In other words, 10 people have determined that they are victims of wrongful convictions by the judge."
"The third aspect of power is the jury, or a group of people similar to a jury. In many countries, we can see the jury system. The jury system means that when a person is accused of a crime, whether or not the person has actually committed the crime is not up to the judge to decide, but rather a dozen or so randomly selected people in the local area who have nothing to do with the case make a judgment after learning about the case and decide whether the accused is guilty."
"The fourth aspect of power is history. Some people may say that I am engaging in metaphysical arguments here. In fact, that is not the case. The power of history means that a case will still be discussed and remembered decades, centuries, or even millennia later."
"The fifth aspect of power is heaven. Chinese people all believe that 'people do, heaven watches.' This heaven obviously does not refer to the sky, but rather the 'Heavenly Lord' who can understand and intervene in human affairs."
"The ancient wisdom of China also believes that this Heavenly Lord will one day uphold justice. As the saying goes, 'Good is rewarded with good, evil is rewarded with evil; if the reward has not yet come, it is because the time has not yet arrived; when the time arrives, everything will be repaid.' Here, I would like to kindly advise everyone, including myself, that it is better for a person to do more good deeds and fewer evil deeds."
