Jan. 12, 2006

A Bloor and Dufferin area resident is appealing to the Canadian government for help in freeing his mother from a Chinese jail.

Huang Xin was arrested and sentenced to eight years in prison for practicing Falun Gong.

"She did not violate any laws in China," said Caroline Jin, one of Michael Zeng's friends who has been working for the past three years to get Xin out of jail.

The Chinese government, under a communist regime, doesn't allow independent thinking or beliefs outside communist ideology, she said.

"They want to control people's minds, that's why they don't like it," said Jin. "They do not like any spiritual practice. That's why they [persecute] Falun Gong."

The Chinese government banned what is described as the practice of meditation and gentle exercises with a focus on cultivating the universal principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance of oneself, in July of 1999.

Although it has been banned in China, Falun Gong and its founder Li Hongzhi has received thousands of awards and proclamations from government officials throughout North America for the benefits its has brought to society.

Hongzhi was nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2000, 2001 and 2002.

"We want the Canadian government to help," said Jin. "They are helping, but not as much as we expected."

China is afraid of any kind of pressure from the international community, Jin said.

"If the Canadian government put enough pressure on China, they would release her," she said of Xin.

Xin has been imprisoned at Liaoning Female Prison since September of 2003.

Prison officials, according to her son, gave her large doses of a psychiatric drug (chlorpromazine) daily so she would renounce her belief in Falun Gong.

"On Dec. 18, we found out she was put into a male cell and raped by male prisoners. She is not the first case," Jin said. "Chinese authorities don't respect human rights. It's the communist regime. It's very inhumane."

Said Zeng in a letter; "Gang raping of female Falun Gong practitioners is not rare at all in the jails in China."

Zeng and his supporters have held press conferences on Parliament Hill in Ottawa as well as at Queen's Park and garnered attention from the TV media.

"We want Canadians to urge our government to put pressure on the human rights issue," Jin said.

If you would like more information about Falun Gong, visit www.falundafa.org or falundafa.ca.