Chinese Communist Party Panics Over a Few Words of Gratitude in Doctoral Thesis

Mr. Yu Yaou is a doctoral candidate at the Southern China Botanical Garden of the Guangzhou Chinese Academy of Sciences. He is about to graduate. In his doctoral thesis, he wrote a few words to express his gratitude towards Falun Gong, "First, I would like to thank Falun Gong. Without the support that I got from this righteous belief, I wouldn't have been able to finish my thesis." Because of these few words, he recently met with much difficulty in his graduation process. He was originally supposed to defend his thesis on February 4th, 2010, but the date was cancelled. Mr. Yu was asked to remove the words mentioning Falun Gong from his thesis. He was not allowed to explain the facts of Falun Gong with his own experience during the defence. Meanwhile, Chinese Communist Party officials threatened several times that they would dismiss or arrest him.

On February 4th, 2010, Mr. Yu submitted his request to have his doctorate thesis defence restored, to the management at the Southern China Botanical Garden and the thesis committee, according to the "Regulations on How to Manage the Graduate Students at the Chinese Academy of Sciences," as well as the requirement from the Education Department of the Southern China Botanical Garden. In his request, Mr. Yu explained in detail that Falun Gong teaches people to be good, and that it is a righteous belief. It is illegal for the Education Department and the other departments to cancel his thesis defence and try to punish him with detention in a forced labour camp due to his belief in Falun Gong. Mr. Yu said he reserves the right to appeal to higher authorities and even file a lawsuit for this injustice. Meanwhile, he hopes the related people can accept the truth and make a correct decision.

Mr. Yu followed all the rules in his doctorate thesis. His words of gratitude towards Falun Gong do not violate any regulations at his graduate school. He therefore refused to remove the words when his teachers and other authorities made repeated demands. On February 6th, Chinese Communist Party officials urged Mr. Yu's teacher to talk to him again in front of Mr. Yu's parents and wife. He was given three choices.

One was to remove the words and not talk about Falun Gong in his thesis defence. His teachers would then help him successfully graduate and get his degree certificate. The second choice was to quit school and move away. The third choice was to wait to be arrested by the 610 Office (an organisation of special agents just for persecuting Falun Gong). When asked why the 610 Office would arrest Mr. Yu, the teacher said, "There is an article on the Minghui website [Chinese version of Clearwisdom.net] exposing how Yu Yaou and his wife were persecuted because of their belief in Falun Gong. Another reason is Yu's request to have his thesis defence restored, even though the request was required by the school. Besides, they don't need a reason to arrest Yu."

In their discussion, Mr. Yu's teacher repeatedly emphasised that he was there out of concern for Mr. Yu and therefore suggested those three choices. However, at the beginning of the discussion, the teacher received two phone calls. One was to ask him to speak deeply and clearly and the other was to ask him to speak well and to be mindful of the confidential nature of the information. It was obvious that the teacher was pressured.

Chinese Communist Party officials from Southern China Botanical Garden again threatened Mr. Yu on February 7th, "Even if you pass the thesis defence, the committee will fail you, not on the basis of Falun Gong, but 'by being very picky and finding some trivial issues.'" In fact, this is very similar to the threat that they made previously when Mr. Yu and his wife were trying to get their positions back at school. At that time they said, "They will not reject you because you practise Falun Gong, but they will find some other reasons to justify their decision." It clearly shows the Chinese Communist Party is corrupt. As upright as the Chinese Academy of Sciences is, it too is a tool of the 610 Office and they became involved in persecuting the kind-hearted Falun Gong practitioners by "being picky and finding legitimate justifications." Mr. Yu's parents had had enough of the threats. They came to visit Mr. Yu and his wife with their best wishes, but being faced with this kind of "graduation" debacle, they lost any hope in having the situation resolved with the school. They were very disappointed and sadly left.

Chinese version available at http://minghui.ca/mh/articles/2010/2/8/217769.html