Amnesty International: Campaign to Secure the Release of Lizhi He, Prisoner of Conscience

Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners Continues. Please help secure the release of Lizhi He

Since the Falun Gong was banned by the Chinese government on 22 July 1999 as "a threat to social and political stability", tens of thousands of practitioners have been arbitrarily detained by police, some of them repeatedly for short periods. Many of them are reported to have been tortured or ill-treated in detention. Some practitioners have been detained in psychiatric hospitals. More than 350 Falun Gong followers are reported to have died in custody since the crackdown began. The number of practitioners who remain in detention is believed to be in the thousands. Some of those detained have been charged with crimes and sentenced after unfair trials, while others have been sent to labour camps without trial. New arrests and detentions continue to be reported every day.

Amnesty International is calling on the Chinese government to stop the mass arbitrary detentions, unfair trials and other human rights violations resulting from the crackdown on the Falun Gong and other groups branded by the government as "heretical organizations". All the information available indicates that the crackdown is politically motivated, with legislation being used retroactively to convict people on politically-driven charges, and new regulations introduced to further restrict fundamental freedoms.

In December 2000, Lizhi He, senior civil engineer with the Construction Ministry of the Chinese Government, was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for his peaceful activities as a member of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice combining Chinese qigong exercises, meditation and moral teachings. His wife, Li Zhang, is a permanent resident in Canada.

The Canadian government had already issued the necessary papers for Mr. He and Ms. Zhang to immigrate to Canada. After unsuccessful attempts to appeal for her husband's release and under threat of detention herself, Ms. Zhang made the difficult decision to travel to Canada alone.

Amnesty International considers Lizhi He to be a prisoner of conscience and is calling for his unconditional release from prison.

Please send courteously worded letters, faxes or emails to the addresses below:

Expressing concern that Lizhi He, a senior civil engineer with the Chinese government and a Falun Gong practitioner who had been accepted to come to Canada as an immigrant, has been imprisoned in China in violation of his right to freedom of belief.

Urging the Canadian government to press Chinese authorities for the immediate and unconditional release of Lizhi He as a prisoner of conscience.

Expressing concern about reports that Lizhi He is suffering from kidney and lung problems and requesting that the Prime Minister ask Chinese authorities to ensure that Lizhi He receives appropriate medical care while in custody.

In April 1999, in what is now considered to be a major turning point in relations between the Chinese government and Falun Gong, several thousand Falun Gong practitioners demonstrated peacefully outside Zhongnanhai, the Chinese government compound in Beijing, for the necessary government recognition of Falun Gong as a legitimate qigong practice. Many believe this incident to have been key to the Chinese government's decision to ban the group a few months later in July 1999.

In May 1999, shortly after the Zhongnanhai incident, the couple applied for immigration to Canada. Their application was approved in June 1999 and their immigration papers were received a year later on July 8, 2000.

On July 18 and 19, 2000, Lizhi He went to a post office in Beijing to do a mass mailing of Falun Gong materials to friends and work colleagues. He was apparently seen by the Security Bureau, photographed at the post office, and arrested from his workplace a few days later on July 21, 2000. For an entire month, Li Zhang was unable to find out where her husband was being held.

On November 14, 2000, Lizhi He was charged with the offence of using a heretical organization to undermine the implementation of the law. He was tried and sentenced to 3 years and 6 months in prison on December 5, 2000.

For the first six months of his detention, Lizhi He was held in the Haidian Detention Centre in Beijing, where his wife was not allowed to visit with him. On February 14, 2001, Lizhi He was transferred to Qianwei prison in the Chadianzhan district of Tianjin City, and sometime in November 2001, to the Qianjin prison in the same district, where he is still believed to be held.

Li Zhang last saw her husband in the medical wing of Qianwei prison on April 14, 2001. He had been coughing up blood and indicated that he was suffering from kidney and lung problems.

Since the ban of Falun Gong in July 1999, both Lizhi He and Li Zhang had been forced to undergo numerous re-education sessions by their workplace managers, during which they were pressured to renounce their belief in Falun Gong. They were told that they could lose their jobs, be sent to re-education camp, or even face death. At one point, Li Zhang worked for three months without pay as punishment.

Li Zhang herself was detained for short periods for attempting to appeal peacefully to the authorities on behalf of the thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who are reported to be currently in detention and the hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners who are reported to have died while in custody -- the first time, for going to the citizens' appeal office in Beijing, and the second time, for stating publicly at Tiananmen Square that she was a Falun Gong practitioner. Li Zhang decided to leave China at the beginning of May 2001, using her Canadian immigration papers, after the authorities told her that she was going to be sent to re-education camp. Under Chinese law, citizens can be sent to re-education camp for up to 3 years without charge or trial.

When he was arrested, Lizhi He was working as a senior civil engineer with the Construction Ministry, responsible for evaluating engineers' qualifications for certification. For many years before that, he had worked at the same government enterprise as his wife, Li Zhang, also a civil engineer - the Beijing Central Engineering and Research Incorporation of the Iron and Steel Industry, known as CERIS.

The case of Lizhi He is one of several which have been reported to Amnesty International by Canadian relatives of Falun Gong practitioners detained in China.