Thursday, March 27, 2003
By John Knox, Burnaby NOW reporter
A Burnaby woman is trying desperately to find any information on the whereabouts of a sister who may have been imprisoned by the Chinese government for supporting the outlawed practice of Falun Gong.
Michelle Zhang, 32, has been living in Canada for a few years now and has just recently taken up the practice herself.
She is currently trying to locate her sister Jennifer, a practitioner since 1997, who is believed to have disappeared sometime before March 2001.
Sometimes known as Falun Dafa, Falun Gong is a combination of meditation and exercises along with teachings that emphasize truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.
But Zhang is worried because the practice of Falun Gong was declared illegal by Chinese leader Jiang Zemin in 1999 and, since that time, its followers have raised serious allegations of human rights abuses against them by the government.
"Every day I think about my sister and wonder where she is, what she is doing, what she is thinking about," Zhang told the Burnaby NOW with the assistance of an interpreter.
"I know how women practitioners are treated in labour camps. I have heard the stories documented by international human rights agencies of women being electrically shocked in their private parts, having hot needles pierced into their nipples, being thrown naked into the cells of vicious male criminals to be tortured and raped."
Zhang maintains that prisoners are reputedly "shackled in inhumane positions" for extended periods of time with no access to washroom facilities.
And as miserable as that existence may sound, Zhang said, others face an even worse fate - death.
Zhang said that Jennifer's husband Songtao was one of those unfortunate individuals who died under suspicious circumstances while in police custody.
"My brother-in-law Songtao was one of the first practitioners who went to appeal to the government officials (after the ban)," Zhang said.
"He was immediately arrested and taken to a labour camp. He was denied family visits and no one knew where he was - he disappeared. Those who appealed were taken to labour camps, volunteer organizers were sentenced to lengthy prison terms, and many were sent to mental hospitals."
Songtao, however, was not so lucky - if you can call it that.
"It was not until March 2001 that I learned of my brother-in-law's demise," Zhang said. "During a conversation with my father on the phone, he broke down in tears and fully disclosed the persecution that my family was suffering.
"Songtao had been tortured to death by a police officer on Nov. 3, 2000 for not giving up his belief in truthfulness, compassion, tolerance. And his wife, my sister, was 'missing.'"
Zhang was shocked - the couple had recently had a baby girl who was now without parents.
"They were very happy and I was happy for them," Zhang said.
"I knew that Songtao and my sister were such good people. Songtao was one of the most honourable and compassionate men I had ever met."
The couple's child is now being raised by relatives, Zhang said, but she's hoping media coverage - no matter how small - can help raise Canada's awareness of the Falun Going situation in China, and possibly bring about the release of its practitioners from labour camps and prisons.
In the past, Burnaby-Douglas MP Svend Robinson has been an outspoken critic of China's alleged abuses against Falun Gong practitioners.
"The systematic repression of the fundamental human rights of the practitioners of Falun Gong cannot go without condemnation," Robinson said in a press statement last year.
"Our government, after failing to co-sponsor a China resolution at this year's United Nations Commission on Human Rights, must show that it is willing to put the promotion of the basic human rights ahead of the pursuit of profits in its diplomatic relations with China."
Zhang has asked anyone interested in bringing justice to Falun Gong practitioners in China to contact the Falun Dafa Information Centre at [email protected], or visit the Web site www.faluninfo.net