Mercury (Australia): Hollis supports Falun Gong mum

3 September 2001

Throsby MP Colin Hollis has pledged to try to help a young Dapto woman free her mother serving three years in a Chinese labour camp for distributing flyers about a spiritual movement.

Mr. Hollis and his staff also will ask Immigration Minister Philip Ruddock for advice on whether the woman can apply for refugee status and move to Australia.

Mr. Hollis believes the woman could qualify for refugee status because she is a member of a spiritual group, the Falun Gong, which is being persecuted by the Chinese Government.

Esther Wang already has written to Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer in a desperate effort to have her 56-Year-old mother released from the camp she shares with 10,000 prisoners including "thugs and hardened criminals."

Ms. Wang, who arrived in Australia in 1995 to marry her Australian fiance Bill and is now an Australian citizen, claimed this week her sister in China was allowed initial contact with their mother but that has now been denied.

Ms. Wang said she and her mother practised Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong - a spiritual movement which teaches meditation, truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance but it was banned in China in July 1999.

Thousands of people in China have been arrested for practising Falun Dafa and millions of books, audio tapes and videotapes have been confiscated and burnt.

Ms. Wang's mother was arrested outside her home in July last year for allegedly distributing Falun Dafa leaflets.

After meeting Ms. Wang on Friday at his office, Mr Hollis promised to try to help Ms. Wang have her mother released and brought to Australia.

"I still have a bit of hope," Ms Wang said later.