December 4, 2002
(Clearwisdom.net) A Japanese man whose ailing Chinese-born wife remains
detained in China for her activities in the Falun Gong joined practitioners and
supporters of the banned spiritual movement Wednesday in appealing for
international support amid Beijing's continuing clampdown.
Atsushi Kaneko, a 46-year-old office worker from Sadogashima Island in Niigata
Prefecture, appealed for help to secure access to his hospitalized wife Yoko and
an end to persecution of other Falun Gong practitioners at a press conference at
the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan.
He was speaking alongside representatives of the Global Mission to Rescue
Persecuted Falun Gong Practitioners, who said more than 100,000 of the
movement's practitioners have been sent to forced labor camps, typically without
trial, since 1999 and that hundreds and possibly thousands of practitioners have
died.
Kaneko's wife Yoko, 38, on behalf of whom the human rights watchdog Amnesty
International issued an appeal Friday last week, was arrested May 24 along with
two Japanese while passing out fliers to passersby in Beijing appealing for an
end to persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. While the two Japanese were
deported to Japan, Yoko, who has permanent residency here, was sentenced the
following month to 18 months reeducation through labor.
Kaneko visited her at a labor camp in Beijing on Aug. 15, but she has since been
hospitalized and her husband has been prevented by the Chinese government from
seeing her again to assess her health condition.
He said that when he last visited his wife, whose Chinese name is Luo Rong, not
only had she lost considerable weight and appeared weak, but she seemed to have
changed mentally and had bruises, indicating she may have been tortured or
ill-treated in the camp.
'I was only able to see about 15 centimeters of them, but the inner part of both
of her wrists were black and blue,' he said, adding he could sense then that she
would be unable to sustain her health much longer.
He said he was not allowed to speak to her directly in Japanese but only through
a Chinese interpreter, while there were eight uniformed Chinese in the room,
four sitting down facing him and four standing up facing her, whose expressions
he could not see.
Chinese authorities restricted the topics they were able to discuss, and his
wife told him she was 'comfortable' in the detention center and that life there
was 'wonderful.'
'I was wondering why, if she had lost so much weight, things there were really
so comfortable and wonderful,' he said.
Kaneko said he had been told he would be able to visit her again in late
September, but when he submitted an application for a visa, the Chinese Embassy
rejected it without giving any concrete reason, other than to say he 'should
know why.'
On Oct. 17, he said, he heard from her family members that she was no longer in
the camp, and it was not until Nov. 13 that he learned from Chinese authorities
she had been hospitalized.
Despite having repeatedly implored the Japanese Foreign Ministry to ascertain
his wife's condition, Chinese authorities have only told Japanese Embassy
officials in Beijing that she was 'fine.'
'I used to think the Chinese are a very kind and wonderful people, and that the
Chinese government was likewise, but because of this incident I have been forced
to change my way of thinking,' Kaneko said.
In October, Kaneko traveled to Los Cabos, Mexico to publicize his cause at a
gathering there of the leaders of 21 Pacific Rim countries attending the annual
Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.
Amnesty International said in its statement last week that Yoko is thought to be
seriously ill, possibly suffering high blood pressure, and 'there are serious
concerns that she may not receive adequate hospital care.'
Yoko's elder sister Luo Zhen was reportedly detained Nov. 5 in Heilongjiang
Province of northeastern China following her involvement in publicizing her
sister's case, and may have also been sent to a labor camp, it said.
Category: Falun Dafa in the Media
