Canadian Citizen's Public Appeal to Rescue His Sister, Whose Life is Threatened By Persecution

I am Chen Yingyi, a Canadian citizen living in British Columbia. Hereby I would like to appeal to all levels of the Canadian government, all media, and people from all walks of life, as well as human right organizations to help rescue my sister, a Falun Dafa practitioner, who is being persecuted in China.

My sister, Chen Yinghua, is a resident of Jiaxing City, Zhejiang Province. Chinese police arrested her on August 8, 2003 for practising Falun Gong and clarifying the facts about the persecution of Falun Gong by Jiang Zemin's regime. She has been detained since then. When she was initially imprisoned in a detention centre, she clarified the facts about Falun Gong and the persecution to the police there. Later on, she remained silent and refused to sign her name or be fingerprinted on any of the interrogation records. Seeing that she kept silent, the police unreasonably and barbarously said that she might have this right in foreign countries but not in China. To protest this unreasonable interrogation and the indefinite detention, my sister started a hunger strike on September 13, which is still going on now. The police forced-fed her through the nose. The force-feeding tube was pulled out ten days later, by then covered with thick pus and blood. She also suffered severe inflammation. At the end of September, she was sent to the Hangzhou City Qingchun Hospital, a prison hospital.

My father and my brother-in-law were allowed to see my sister only once while she was in hospital. In order to deceive my family members, the police gave her injections of many types of medicines on the day prior to the visit, which made her appear normal. The police also made special arrangements for a vehicle to take my father and sister-in-law there. The police were present during the whole visit. My sister was neither handcuffed nor shackled during the supervised visit. My father and brother-in-law felt that my sister just looked very skinny, and that everything else looked normal. This, in fact, was just the superficial appearance that the police had arranged. My father and sister-in-law were deceived. They tried to convince my sister to stop the hunger strike, which my sister refused. My sister said one sentence, "Only just now am I allowed to sit up."

Now we know that the police always tried to extort confessions and mistreated my sister with torture. While she was detained there, she was tied to the bed with handcuffs and shackles. She could not move at all. The hospital staff told my family that being tied to a bed for a long time would cause degeneration of my sister's joints and also cause muscle atrophy and result in grave consequences.

Staging a hunger strike is her only way to protest. She had said if the police had any evidence proving that she violated the law, they could go to court to file a lawsuit against her, but the police have not filed any lawsuit against her. Even when my sister is on the hunger strike, she is still being tortured. Her life is in great danger, but her will is still very strong. She insists that she is innocent. She has a strong faith in Falun Dafa. My family members admire her very much.

I appeal to all the levels of the Canadian government, people from all walks of life and international human rights organizations to help rescue my sister. Please speak out and let your voice of justice be heard! Condemn the Chinese government and Jiaxing City Police Department officials for their persecution of my sister! Thank you.

Political Head Zhou, from the Political and Security Section of Jianxing City Police Department, 86-573-2081821

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2003/10/9/58579.html