Re: Rescue our family members arrested in Beijing for practicing Falun Gong

July 13, 2007

Dear Honorable Mayor Bill Bogaard:

First, I would like to thank you for giving us the opportunity to speak at the city council meeting on June 25, 2007. I especially appreciate Councilmember Chris Holden’s comment about that the city can use the relationship developed with Beijing to pressure China to improve its human rights condition. And I would like to ask you to write a letter to Chinese President Jintao Hu or Beijing Mayor Qishan Wang to request an immediate release of my mother Shuying Li and my friend Hongwei’s husband Dongwei Bu. They are both Falun Gong practitioners and were arrested last year due to Beijing government’s clearing the streets for 2008 Olympic.

Enclosed are the signatures we collected for our petition to rescue our family members.

I hope you understand, as Falun Gong practitioners, we only pleaded the Chinese government to allow us to practice Falun Gong openly and with dignity. It’s hardly a political agenda. Moreover, before the crackdown in July 1999, the Chinese government even encouraged people to practice Falun Gong because it can save a lot of money for the government on health care.

In the early 1990s, China’s health care system was already heading towards bankruptcy. A lot of Chinese people, especially elderly people sought alternative ways to improve their health, such as practicing Qigong. And among all the Qigong exercises, Falun Gong is not only free of charge but also very effective. It has five sets of gentle exercises, and it teaches people to assimilate to Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance. Those are the traditional values deeply rooted in Chinese culture, and therefore were easily accepted by many people. I’ve participated group practice in Beijing that had as many as 3000 people attended. The state-run newspapers sometimes published stories of good deeds done by Falun Gong practitioners. And the television showed the chief of China’s General Administration of Sport, Wu Shaozu visited the Falun Gong practice site in Changchun City in northeast China.

However, after July 1999, Falun Gong suddenly became an “evil cult that threatened social stability and spread superstitious thinking”. Former Chinese president Jiang Zemin said during a CCP Central Committee meeting to arrange for the persecution of Falun Gong, “I just don't believe the CCP can't defeat Falun Gong.” He issued the policy, “Ruin their reputations, bankrupt them financially and annihilate them physically” and set up a deadline for “Falun Gong to be eradicated within three months.” A bloody genocide was thus initiated.

In 2000, my mother was kidnapped by the policemen on Chinese New Year’s eve. Eight months later, she and other eight Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced to prison on October 12, 2000. It was not an open trial. Each defendant could only have one family member to audit and the courthouse was strictly guarded. Even the bus stops nearby where re-routed on that day. My father couldn’t talk to her on court and he had no rights to lodge an appeal or engage a lawyer for her because the court does not allow it.

Between February 4, 2000 and October 12, 2000, we did not know her whereabouts. Later we learned that she had been detained in Beijing Public Security Bureau Branch Seven where they keep prisoners on death roll. Then she was transferred to Beijing Xicheng District Detention Center. After the trial, she was jailed in Beijing Tuanhe Juvenile Prison until she was released on February 1, 2003.

In Tuanhe Juvenile Prison, she and a lot of other Falun Gong practitioners were separated to different platoons with each platoon composed of 100 criminal prisoners. The policemen even encouraged prisoners to harass her while for example waiting in line to get meal. They would also ask the prisoners to give my mother and other Falun Gong practitioners false articles of Mr. Li Hongzhi, founder of Falun Gong, in order to trick them to give up.

Even after she was released in 2003, the policemen of Shuangyushu substation are still watching my parents closely. They tapped into our telephone and they would pay a visit to my parents every couple of months. My letters and packages sent to my parents were often times opened and damaged.

Since 2008 Olympics Games is approaching, the Chinese communist party started several massive arrests to clear the streets. As a result, my mother was arrested again on December 15, 2006. That evening, three policemen broke into my parents’ home and started to search for Falun Gong materials. Once they found some, they arrested my mother.

A month later, they “sentenced” my mother to 2.5 years force labor and now she is now jailed in the Beijing Female Labor Camp in Daxing district.

This is a horrible experience for my family. However, it has happened to millions of families in China since the Chinese community seized control in 1949. So many innocent people have been taken away from their loved ones arbitrarily because they were not consistent with the Chinese communist party’s ideology. And because of the community party’s relentless persecution and brainwashing, many Chinese people have learned the lesson and adopted lives without spiritual pursuit. Especially after the economic reform, some people would do anything in seek of money and personal interests. That’s why we have seen so much corruption and poisonous food coming from China. It hurt Chinese society and started to hurt the rest of the world as well.

Eight years has past since the first crackdown of Falun Gong. As an American Mayor, you have the power to help us end this persecution and rescue our family members. Please use that power to help us.

We appreciate your attention to this matter. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.


Yours truly,

Yaning Liu