Tuesday, December 3, 2002

By Julian Kennedy

FALUN Gong practitioners Lucy Liu and Jennifer Zeng are caught in the shadows between diplomacy and human rights.

From Ms Liu's Pascoe Vale flat, the pair last week described how relatives in China have been caught up in the Government's crackdown on the Falun Gong movement. Like other followers who have fled the crackdown, the women are lobbying their new country's government to pressure China on its human rights abuses.

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They said the crackdown had led to 520 documented deaths of Falun Gong Followers, and probably hundreds of undocumented deaths.

Political action is not without its risks.

Ms Zeng believed her husband, who is not a Falun Gong follower, is being held hostage by Beijing police.

She said he disappeared four days after she visited Chicago on October 21 to present a legal claim against Chinese president Jiang.

Ms Zeng said the legal claim, which included her account of torture as a labour camp prisoner, was submitted to the International Criminal Court and two United Nation committees.

Ms Zeng said she succumbed to sleep deprivation, and signed a declaration denouncing Falun Gong.

"When I signed that paper, I felt worse than being shocked by their electric batons," she said.

Unable to face what she called the local police's "brain-washing classes" after her release last year, Ms Zeng said she made it through Chinese customs and flew to Australia on a temporary business visa. She is applying for permanent residency.

Ms Zeng said she had barely seen her husband in three years and her nine-year-old daughter is being cared for by her daughter's grandmother.

Ms Liu, a tester for a St Kilda software company, left China to join her husband in Australia just before the Falun Gong crackdown in July 1999.

She said she had no way of knowing the condition of her sister, also a follower who is two years into a three-year term at a labour camp.

Ms Liu has lobbied Wills Federal MP Kelvin Thomson, Prime Minister John Howard, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer and the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Mr Thomson wrote to Mr Howard asking him to raise the issue with Jiang at the October APEC meeting in Mexico. He has yet to receive a reply. A spokesman for Mr Howard was unavailable for comments.