Sunshine Coast Daily: Jane Says Husband Was Murdered for His Beliefs

On February 24th 2006, Australian Sunshine Coast Daily published an article entitled "Jane Says Husband Was Murdered for His Beliefs."

The article said that an Australian woman who believes her husband was tortured to death by China's secret police is on the Sunshine Coast spreading the word about the human rights abuses of our new major trading partner and this country's restrictions on protests outside the Chinese Embassy.

Jane Dai and her five-year-old daughter Fadu escaped to Australia in 2001 after Chinese authorities imprisoned her 34-year-old husband Chen for his support for Falun Gong -- a meditative exercise that was banned in China in 1991. Chen's decomposed body was found in July 2001.

Jane, who is a guest of Peregian's John Dowie, is hoping public awareness will help in the campaign aimed at supporting an estimated 250,000 Chinese children orphaned when their parents were killed for practicing Falun Gong.

"Australia is the only western democracy where we have been restricted in our protests outside the Chinese Embassy in the capital,'' Jane said.

"They killed my husband and I cannot even hold a banner calling for the killing to stop because Foreign Minister Alexander Downer keeps signing certificates outlawing the use of banners and music in these protests at the request of the Chinese Government.''

The article said Ms Dai had traveled through 41 countries, had appeared at the UN in 2002, 2003 and 2004 and launched legal action in Geneva about China's coercive regime.

"They can torture, beat us and kill us but they still cannot kill belief," she said. "That is why we have to speak out to let the world know what is happening, for our children's generation."

"Although my husband is gone, I must take my daughter all over the world, and tell people that 'Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance' can't be written off."