Help Rescue Our Family Members Who Are Enduring Persecution in China

After Falun Gong practitioners from Canada, Japan, Germany and other countries started activities to rescue our family members and fellow practitioners who are persecuted in China, practitioners from the US also actively joined in this global endeavour. There are practitioners throughout the entire country who have family members that are currently suffering the persecution. Previously, we had held press conferences at each individual local area and tried to clarify the facts about the persecution to the local public. Many local media also came to cover the stories. This time, we will work together and consolidate our efforts, so that we can "add up small streams to [form] rivers and seas" and to clarify the truth more thoroughly and extensively. Our family members who are enduring the persecution are distributed over the entire country of China. They are husbands, wives, parents, brothers and sisters of overseas practitioners. They come from different education backgrounds and social strata. They struggled hard to deal with their ailments and to find a way back to their true selves. Eventually in their lives, they obtained the opportunity to attain Dafa, and since then began their brand-new lives. They have changed: they became good mothers, kind husbands, responsible employees, considerate neighbours and so on.... Unfortunately, the vicious persecution deprived them of their rights to assimilate themselves to the universal principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance." To safeguard the truth, they bravely stood up and stepped out, but as a result, they were imprisoned in "re-education" through labour camps or sentenced to jail. These are touching stories that move people to tears. Their stories will allow kind-hearted people to see through the evil nature of the persecution and support us in order to uphold justice.

Previously, we had met some Chinese people in the Chinese community who were deeply misled by the deceitful lies. They did not believe that the things we showed on our display boards and flyers were real. They even doubted that those were true stories. For them, the real stories about the persecution suffered by our family members are the direct evidence to counteract the evil's lies. In American society, there are still some government officials and media who respond indifferently towards the persecution of Falun Gong in China. Most of them consider this as a remote matter that has nothing to do with the US government or the public. Therefore, our rescue campaign can effectively break through this barrier and allow them to realize that the persecution has been extended to overseas and almost every corner of the world has been affected. In the face of the battle between the righteous and the evil, the kind and the vicious, everyone must make his own choice for his own future.

Presently, Falun Gong practitioners from North America, Japan, Australia and Europe cooperate with each other to clarify the truth, to form a sea of justice. We can effectively combine our truth-clarification to the governments of different countries, media, and the public as well as the overseas Chinese people together with the activities of rescuing our family members. This way, we will let the kind-hearted people realize the power of righteousness and let the vicious see the heavenly principle that "good deeds will be rewarded with good, while evil deeds meet with retribution."

Below is a truth-clarifying flyer: Please Reach out Your Helping Hands. Help Rescue Our Family Members Who Are Persecuted in China

The following people are family members of United States residents. They are prisoners of conscience in the PRC and are being detained and tortured for their belief in Falun Gong.

Zhiwun Wang, male, 50, government official-father of Xiaodan Danielle Wang (a student at the University of Texas in Austin). Mr. Wang was one of four volunteer contact persons of the Beijing Falun Dafa Association, who was sentenced to a 16-year prison term. The little news that filters out of the PRC to Danielle and her family is vague and disconnected, and letters are not allowed in or out. They heard that he has been forced to sit on a small bench for seven straight days without food, water, or rest. He has been tortured to try to make him renounce his belief in Falun Gong, but he has consistently refused to succumb. One day a phone call from China reached Danielle's mother and it was Zhiwun. The entire conversation was about their daughter. That was almost two years ago and was the last word received from Zhiwun.

Xuefei Zhou, female, 28, advertising designer-wife of Zhaohui Lu (Warehouse manager and a resident of Georgia). Xuefei has been held prisoner in a Chinese labour camp ever since she was arrested in November 2000 for passing out pamphlets about the practice of Falun Gong. After more than one and a half years of torture and intensive labour in the camp, she has become so malnourished that she has nearly lost her eyesight. Her family has tried very hard to get her out for medical treatment, but they have been refused.

Xingwu Zhang, male, 60, professor of Jinan Normal College; and Pinjie Liu, female, 60, retired worker-father and mother of New York resident, Shuangying Zhang. They started practising Falun Gong in 1995 and since then, both of them experienced dramatic improvements physically and mentally. After July 20, 1999, they were subjected to criminal detention. After they were allowed to go home, they were still under surveillance for a long period of time. In 2000, to avoid further persecution, they left home. On January 1, 2001, they were detained in Beijing. They refused to tell their names or address to oppose the wrongful detention. In April, they were recognized by the Shandong police and were sent back to Jinan City and were forced to receive "re-education" in a brainwashing centre. During that period of time, Mrs. Zhang went on hunger strike to protest and was sent to a hospital. Later, both Mr. and Mrs. Zhang were sentenced to a forced labour camp for 3 years, where they were made to do heavy labour for over ten hours a day. Their "crime" was "spreading Falun Gong." Mr. Zhang was imprisoned in Liuchangshan Labour Camp in Jinan City. Because he refused to renounce Falun Gong, he had to suffer the "strict surveillance" for a long period of time. In April 2002, he was transferred to Wangcun Labour Camp in Shandong Province to receive a 2-month intensive brainwashing. During these two months, his family members were not allowed to visit him. Mrs. Zhang is imprisoned in the Second Female Re-Education through Forced Labour Camp in Shangdong Province. Because she refused to give up her practice of Falun Gong, her term has been prolonged twice in one year. The labour camps often claim that the practitioners "have thought problems" as an excuse to prohibit their family members from visiting them.

Lingwen Zeng, female, 67, professor of Physics at Jilin University-mother of Xueyuan Wu (Ph.D in Physics, a post-doctoral research associate at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and a resident of New York). Professor Zeng started practising Falun Gong in 1992 and since then, all of her illnesses disappeared gradually and she became healthier and healthier. She had been detained twice in 1999 and since then, she suffered many other types of persecution. During that period of time, Ms. Zeng used her own cultivation experiences to clarify the truth to the police, the neighbourhood committee and her university leaders, which allowed some kind-hearted policemen to understand the truth and they stopped harassing her. Unfortunately, on February 9, 2002, 3 days before the Chinese lunar New Year, following PRC leader Jiang Zemin's new order to "Kill them without pardon," local police wrongfully arrested her again. They held her in a brainwashing centre without notifying her family members. Two months later, her family received notice that she had been sentenced to two years in the notorious Changchun Heizuizi Female Labour Camp for not giving up her practice of Falun Gong.

Yanyun Huang, female, 58, retired kindergarten teacher; Haiyan He, female, 35, high school teacher; and Haiou He, male, 31, physician-mother, younger sister, and younger brother of Haiying He (MD, Ph.D., biomedical researcher at Harvard University and a resident of Massachusetts). Ms. Huang was detained for several months, and after that sent to a drug rehabilitation centre for more than one and a half years. She was forced to do hard labour during the day and sleep shoulder to shoulder in a very small room with over twenty drug addicts at night. She was bailed out by her school colleagues two months after her sentence was due to end and has been under very strict monitoring by local police 24 hours a day since then. When she applied for a passport to visit her son in the United States, she was rejected on the grounds that she was a Falun Gong practitioner and might tell what had happened to her in the drug rehabilitation centre. Haiyan He was sentenced in January 2001 to a labour camp for one and a half years. No one was able to contact her for a year beginning in June 2001, during which time she was put in solitary confinement in a dark cell for several months. After being released from the labour camp, she has been under very strict monitoring by local police 24 hours a day. Mr. Haiou He, a doctor, was held in police custody for over one and a half years without being allowed any contact with his family. Instead of healing others, he faced beatings and torture every day. In May 2002, he was sentenced to 10 years in jail for refusing to give up his belief in Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance.

Xueme Tiemu, female, 50, nurse, mother of Tie Wu, a computer engineer and resident of Connecticut. Ms. Tiemu began practising Falun Dafa in 1996 and since then, she has worked very hard in her workplace. She changed her bad temper and her competitive personality, and mended the bad relationship with her mother-in-law that had lasted for several decades. Falun Gong allowed her to turn her family that was full of conflicts into a harmonious and happy one. In 1999, when Jiang's regime started persecuting Falun Gong, Ms. Tiemu was harassed a number of times for not giving up her practice. During that period of time, her workplace leader demanded that she give up her practice, but she refused. In August 2001, Ms. Tiemu was sentenced without trial to three years in a forced-labour camp because someone said that they obtained Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials from her. The police denied her family visitation rights. It was heard from another source that in the labour camp, she has been subjected to brainwashing (so-called "Education and Saving") as well as heavy physical labour.

Jingjiang Chen, female, 52, retired worker-mother of Chen Wan (Ph.D. candidate in the electrical engineering department, University of Minnesota). Ms. Chen obtained Falun Dafa in 1997. Since then, the various chronic illnesses she had suffered from previously have been cured. The dramatic improvement of her health and personality led other members of her family to start practising Dafa. Since July 1997 when the persecution started, she had been sent to "re-education Centres" to receive forced brainwashing a number of times. Each time, she refused to give up her practice of Falun Dafa. In January 2001, Ms. Chen was arrested because the police found Falun Gong flyers in her home. They used the flyers as evidence to charge Ms. Chen with organizing other Falun Gong practitioners. In the middle of February, Ms. Chen was sentenced to three years in a forced labour camp.

Jizhen Han, female, 60, retired worker and mother of Yongsheng Wang (a resident of Texas and Ph.D. researcher in physics at the University of Houston). Ms Han started practising Falun Dafa at the beginning of 1998 and since then she became healthy and happy. Ms. Han was sent to a mental hospital in Nanjing City for so-called "treatment" after she went to Beijing to appeal on behalf of Falun Gong. Ms. Han told her son, Yongsheng, when he went back to China to visit her in the hospital, "When I was first admitted to the hospital, I was given an injection everyday. After that, I was forced to take oral medication every day. The doctors and nurses here are really vicious. Once, when I tried to refuse the medication, they tied me up and stuffed the medicine down my throat. After taking the medicine, I started to feel as if my brain had been scattered all over the place. I feel extremely nervous and anxious all the time. It feels strange whether I stand up, sit down, or lie down. In addition, I feel extremely weak. Every inch of my body feels uncomfortable."

Cui Zhang, female, 59, retired worker and mother of Chicago resident, Zhiwei Xu. Mrs. Zhang started practising Falun Gong in 1995 and benefited both mentally and physically. She once said, "Falun Gong made me understand the real meaning of life: to return to one's original, true self." After the persecution officially began in July 1999, Mrs. Zhang went to appeal to her local government many times but without any result. She decided to go to Beijing to appeal. In March 2000, she was arrested in Beijing and sent back to a local labour camp for four months. She suffered a great deal and went on a hunger strike. Ten days later, she was released. In May 2001, she was arrested again. Police ransacked her home and took everything they could, including her passport. Because of that, she missed her only opportunity of attending her son's Ph.D. graduation. Right now her family members are trying their best to rescue her from this dangerous situation and reunite her with her son in the U.S.

Chunyan Teng, 37, an acupuncturist and an instructor of acupuncture at the Pacific Institute of Oriental Medicine in New York City. The wife of an American citizen, Dr. Teng returned to China and allegedly helped foreign news reporters gain interviews with Falun Gong practitioners who had been tortured in jail or sent to psychiatric hospitals. After a closed-door trial, she was sentenced to three years in prison under the charge of "prying into state intelligence for overseas organizations." Dr. Teng has been held in a Chinese prison for over two years. We urgently need your support in securing her safe return. U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher characterizes her situation as "deeply disturbing" and requests her release to the United States.

Fenglan Yu, female, 62, medical doctor; Dengyue Yang, male, 69, former director of Yili Nursing School. These are the parents of Colorado resident and U.S. Citizen, Chenguang Yang. They were detained and harassed after the persecution began because they didn't give up their belief in Falun Gong. Their son had started to work on their application for U.S. permanent residency two years ago in anticipation of his wedding. However, because Fenglan and Dengyue didn't renounce their belief in Falun Gong, the Chinese authorities denied them passports. American Senator Wayne Allard and Congresswoman Diana Degatte contacted the American Embassy in Beijing to ask for assistance. The Embassy granted Mr. Yang's parents special visas that do not expire. However, two years have passed, and the Chinese authorities continue to block their entry into the U.S. This summer, Mr. Wang had his wedding, and his parents were the only ones missing.

Ruifeng Zhang and Yanxiang Xu, brother and sister-in-law of Rhode Island resident, Ruili Zhang. Mr. Zhang and Ms. Xu began practising Falun Dafa in 1995 and since then they have followed the principles of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" in their daily lives. Mr. Zhang attended the technique competition every year in his workplace. While others often seek to obtain high marks by practising fraud, he never did so. Nevertheless he won first place each time. In 1999, the couple attended the 25th April and 20th July peaceful appeals in Beijing. In September, 1999, they were detained for a month. Both Mr. and Mrs. Zhang were fired from their jobs because they practise Falun Gong. In December 1999, they went to Beijing again to appeal for Falun Gong, but were arrested and imprisoned in Beijing's Daxing Labour camp. In June 2000, Mr. Zhang was sentenced to three and a half years in prison for going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. A few months later, Mrs. Zhang was sentenced without trial to one and a half years in a forced-labour camp in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. Because she refused to sign papers renouncing her belief in Falun Gong, she was detained for one year and seven months. She was arrested again in late April or early May 2002, because she has "overseas relations."

Shaolin Liang, female, 51, librarian-elder sister of Yufeng Liang (M.S., computer engineer, resident of Massachusetts). Ms. Liang purified both her mind and body after practising Falun Gong. She was highly praised and honored as a model worker almost every year in each of her workplaces. In October 1999, while she was on her way to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in order to let the central government know the truth about Falun Gong, Ms. Liang was arrested by police in Guangzhou and detained. After she went on hunger strike for 7 days to oppose the wrongful arrest, she was released. Shortly after, she was detained by her workplace. In January 2001, she was sentenced to two years of forced labour in a Guangdong Province labour camp. However, today she is still being detained in that labour camp.

Zhenhua Dang, male, 33, chemical factory worker and brother of Tongyun Dang (Ph.D., biomedical researcher at Duke University, resident of North Carolina). Mr. Dang started practising Falun Gong in 1996 and benefited from the practice both physically and spiritually. Mr. Dang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong at the end of September 2000. His family did not hear anything from him until a few weeks later. He had been illegally arrested and sent to a local detention centre. Several months later, his family learned that he had been sentenced to a forced labour camp. After he was released upon finishing his term in the labour camp, he was forced to abandon his home and become homeless to avoid further persecution.

Lilong Wan, female, 50 years old, retired security personnel --- aunt of Jianli Xu, a practitioner from Chicago. Since she started practising Falun Gong in 1998, over 10 kinds of illnesses that she had previously suffered from completely disappeared. She lives her life in accordance with the principle of "Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance" and she is recognized as a good person. When the persecution began, she went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in December 1999. She was arrested and imprisoned. In October 2001, she was sentenced to 3 years in prison simply for not giving up her practice. Two months ago, she was set free. Unfortunately, she was suddenly imprisoned again one week later and no one knows her whereabouts.

http://www.clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2002/11/5/28469.html