United States: Fifty New York State Congressmen Request that Governor of Gansu Province Release Ms. Qin Shizhen

The experiences of Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Qin Shizhen, who was illegally detained in the Gongjiawan Brainwashing Centre, was widely reported and received the attention of people in New York State. Fifty state congressmen in New York wrote to the Gansu Province governor and the Secretary of the Provincial Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, to request that Ms. Qin be released, issued a passport, and allowed to join her daughter Li Hongyuan in the US.

Sixty-seven-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Qin Shizhen is a retired professor. On May 24th, 2008, her former employer and Lanzhou city police officers arrested her and took her to a brainwashing centre, known as the Legal Training School of Lanzhou. Li Hongyuan, her daughter in the U.S., could no longer contact her. The brainwashing centre is located in a old warehouse. Several Falun Gong practitioners have been killed or disabled from torture in this centre during the past six years. Forty-eight-year-old Ms. Liu Zhifan, a pipa musician employed by the Gansu Province Yu-Opera Institute, was killed in the centre after being confined and hung by her handcuffed wrists.

Ms. Qin's blood pressure was reported to have reached 190 during her detention. Her daughter and Falun Gong practitioners overseas have launched a rescue campaign. TV stations and newspapers are reporting her experience and the reports have received great attention.