The Now Newspaper (Vancouver): Survival and Sanctuary

Yuzhi Wang, who now lives in White Rock, survived nearly a year in a Chinese labour camp for practising the spiritual philosophy of Falun Gong. Brian Howell

Her [belief in] the practice of Falun Gong nearly cost Yuzhi Wang her life.

Wang is a native of Harbin, a city in the northeastern part of the People's Republic of China, where Falun Gong has been banned since 1999.

Now living in White Rock, Wang has escaped the rampant persecution [practitioners] of the spiritual philosophy face from the Chinese government, but she has family in her home country and she worries about them.

"There is still no freedom for me," Wang said, speaking through an interpreter.

Since arriving in Canada in November, Wang has continued to publicly condemn the Chinese authorities and has launched a lawsuit against a government bureau known as the "6-10 Office" whose specific purpose, according to Wang, is the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

"That made them furious. They sent orders to cut off the finances of my family and to arrest my brothers and sisters. My younger brother was arrested and we don't know where he is. My family doesn't practice Falun Gong. They're doing this to get at me," she said.

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa as it is also known, is described by [practitioners] as a traditional Chinese discipline that incorporates exercise and meditation, not a religion. Its practitioners claim improved physical and spiritual well-being through exercise and the pursuit of truth, compassion and tolerance.

Introduced to the Chinese public in 1992 by Master Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong quickly grew until it had about 100 million followers in China. In 1999, the government outlawed the movement and began arresting and imprisoning thousands of its members.

One of those was Wang, who was arrested three times and ultimately came close to death during a hunger strike while imprisoned for nearly a year in the Wanjia labour camp in Harbin.

Her first arrest came in January 2000 and lasted only a week. Wang was again picked up in July of that year for distributing flyers defending Falun Gong and spent another two weeks in jail.

Each time, Wang said, her jailers ordered other prisoners to beat her when she refused to abandon her beliefs. Guards also beat her with rubber hoses and forced her to sit for hours at a time tied naked to the "iron chair."

"It was made of iron strips and very painful to sit on. One practitioner was forced to sit so long that when they untied him, he couldn't move. He just fell down and died, right there. He was tied there for a week with no food or water."

Arrested a third time in July 2001, Wang went on a hunger strike. In response, prison officials force-fed her by holding her down and forcing a rubber tube down her throat.

"If I refused to open my mouth, they forced it open with pliers. A two-metre tube was forced down my throat and a watery mixture of coarse grain normally fed to animals was poured in," Wang said.

Wang said she nearly suffocated each time she was force-fed and came close to dying several times. Sent to the prison hospital, she continued to refuse food and the force-feeding persisted.

Finally, after nine months of this, she was released to the care of her family in May 2002. A month later Wang was able to leave China to visit family in the United Arab Emirates.

"I had a valid passport before I was arrested and I left through another part of China where, I guess, they didn't know who I was," she explained.

In the end, Wang settled in White Rock where she and her son now live. She's grateful for the refuge Canada has given them, but fears for members of her family still in China.

"I hope Canadians will help to rescue them, too," she said.

Attempts to contact the Chinese consulate general in Vancouver for comment were unsuccessful. No one answered the phone.