Letter from Former Three Gorges Immigration Comptroller to Government Officials: My Daughter Is Innocent

Gentlemen,

Greetings to all of you!

I am Yao Binghua, the father of Yao Hui. Before retiring, I was a former Immigration Comptroller of the Three Gorges Immigration Department. I would like to give my point of view on the recent sentence of seven years imprisonment given to Yao Hui for practising Falun Gong.

I have two daughters and a son, and that's what I would call a happy family. All my children have completed their college education. They are understanding and dutiful in all respects. Yao Hui is the eldest. She was an executive working in the editorial section of the Renmin Changjiang magazine. At the office she was a hard worker, and at home, she never neglected her duty to her parents or care to her siblings. Before taking up the practice of Falun Gong, the duct nodules in her breasts had developed an abnormal growth, and because of that she required regular medical treatment. Every year, she used to spend large sums of money on medication and treatment. But, after practising Falun Gong, she recovered from her ailment completely and for five years afterwards she did not spend a single cent on medical treatment. Because of that, her work unit awarded her with 500 Yuan (1). We were very proud of her, and her colleagues also found that after taking up the practice of Dafa, she had become a warm and amicable person as well. To give back her share to society, she adopted a child from the Xiwang Primary School, with the promise that she would finance him fully in his education at a university. However, since her persecution she has lost her job, and in turn the child has lost all financial and educational support.

Since the persecution began on July 20, 1999, our family has not had a proper Spring Festival family reunion, for exactly five years. Every time such an event, or any other important events arise, officers from the "610 Office" (2) and the local police station always come and take Yao Hui away for a lengthy period of "re-education."

In August 2000, Yao Hui's grandma died. At that time, Yao Hui was imprisoned in the Hewan Forced Labour Camp. On humanitarian grounds, I requested that Yao Hui be released to see her grandma before she died. The answer was, "She is not an immediate relative, and so Yao Hui is not permitted to go." The reply was most inhumane and heartbreaking. Do those people still have a human nature?

In October 2002, a gang of police officers broke into Yao Hui's home. They ransacked the whole house, leaving nothing unturned. At that time, Yao Hui was already arrested. Her husband was away travelling, and their daughter was still at school. On returning home, they discovered that an electronic dictionary that belonged to their daughter, a personal computer from work, as well as 40,000 Yuan, which they had saved for home renovations, had vanished.

During the last few years of continual brainwashing and constant torture at the labour camp, Yao Hui has suffered a lot of inhumane treatment. In order not to let us worry about her, she has never revealed the details. I've heard that for a lengthy period during the end of 1999 to early 2000, she was locked up in a 1-meter square steel cage, and at the end of 2003 an officer, Zhu Linzeng of the "610 Office," under the pretext of re-education, gave Yao Hui a terrible beating. How can these people get away with this? Under whose authority and power are they allowed to treat a completely defenseless person in that manner?

I still don't know what crime Yao Hui has committed. All the publicity in the media about the harm done to the public, and the irresponsibility of Falun Gong practitioners, has never happened in regard to Yao Hui. I am sure my daughter has not done anything harmful to people, and has never been irresponsible to society, and she's definitely not involved in any criminal offences.

I am now advanced in age and confined to a bed. My wife is suffering serious depression due to my daughter's imprisonment, and is developing various cardiac problems. Whose fault is that? Who has turned a stable society into turmoil and a happy family into a broken home? Who has given the authority to arrest my daughter so that she can't come home to see us?

(1) Yuan is the Chinese currency. The average monthly salary of an urban worker in China is 500 Yuan.

(2) "610 Office" is an agency specifically created to persecute Falun Gong, with absolute power over each level of administration in the Party and all other political and judiciary systems.

Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.org/mh/articles/2004/4/22/72920.html