"610 Office" Use Charles Li's Elderly Parents to Coerce Him to Give up Falun Gong

July 20th report from Epoch Times: Ms. Yeong-ching Foo, the fiancée of U.S. citizen Charles Li learned through an U.S. consular official in China who had recently talked to Charles Li, that Li's situation in Nanjing City has worsened. Charles Li is holding a hunger strike. It was learned that to force Charles Li to give up Falun Gong, the Party have forced his elderly parents to visit him in the Nanjing prison where he is being held. This is causing Charles Li great anguish.

Charles' fiancée said, "Chinese people love and respect their parents, and the worst thing for them is to see their elderly parents live in fear and desperation, worrying about their son. The Party is using filial piety, a cherished Chinese character trait, to coerce Charles." She said, "the government took Charles' parents to the prison and ordered them to 'advise' Charles to 'obey the rules'."

Li was worried about his parents' health and stopped his hunger strike in the morning of July 13. On July 14, he resumed the hunger strike, which he plans to continue until July 22. July 20, 1999 was the day Jiang Zemin's group began persecuting Falun Gong. Incarcerated Charles plans to protest on the fourth anniversary of Chinese government's persecution against Falun Gong with a hunger strike.

The U.S. consular official said, "beginning on June 27th, the Nanjing prison authorities sent him to five two-hour brainwashing sessions, all of them consisting of anti-Falun Gong propaganda. On July 8th, Charles refused to go to the brainwashing sessions. As the result, a group of thugs struck him to the ground and forcibly carried him to the brainwashing session upstairs. On July 9th, he again refused to go and was again carried to the session, employing violent means. He has at least 29 bruises on his body, many of which are large. Charles has held another hunger strike and was again abused."

It was learned that during that entire time, Charles wrote six letters to the U.S. consulate officials, none of which the consulate has received. Because the officials didn't receive the weekly letter from Charles, they phoned him and learned he was deprived of his right to do Falun Gong exercises and read Falun Gong books, and he was subjected to brainwashing. He began a hunger strike on July 8th to protest the abuse.

Recently, the number of people put in Charles' cell increased from four to ten, and six of them were sent to monitor him around the clock so he couldn't do Dafa exercises. One of the inmates who is on death row for selling drugs threatened to kill Charles.

U.S. State Department spokesman Mr. Boucher said at a daily press conference [1] on July 18th that U.S. consular official(s) in Shanghai talked to Charles Li on Wednesday, July 16th, and learned he was being subjected to maltreatment. Mr. Boucher said, "We have protested with agencies related to the prison." He also claimed that the U.S. consulates in Beijing and Shanghai have called the Chinese Department of Foreign Affairs and officials in Jiangsu Province to pay attention to this issue.

[1] Although the basic meaning is the same, Mr. Boucher's statements may not contain the exact words he actually made since they have been translated back to English from Chinese.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.ca/mh/articles/2003/7/20/54324.html