(Clearwisdom.net) Zhang Zhaopei and his wife are both Falun Gong practitioners. With the help of the Canadian government they have safely arrived in Toronto. During the years in Singapore while they studied and then worked, they witnessed how the CCP extended its persecution of Falun Gong overseas.

Zhang Zhaopei and his wife in Toronto

In July 1999, Zhang Zhaopei obtained financial aid from the Singapore government and was enrolled at Nanyang Technological University. At the same time he signed a contract with the Singapore Ministry of Education that he would work in Singapore for three years after graduation.

On July 20, 1999, the CCP started the insidious persecution of Falun Gong in China. On campus in Singapore, while watching the CCP's propaganda in attacking Falun Gong, Zhang Zhaopei also got online to read about the introduction of Falun Gong. Eventually he chose to practice Falun Gong.

However, CCP persecution of Falun Gong is not happening only in Mainland China. The CCP tries hard to extend the persecution overseas with all kinds of means. With the pressure from the CCP and the promise of advantages, the Singaporean authorities started to implement policies to restrict Falun Gong activities and even persecute Falun Gong practitioners. The practitioners encounter discrimination. Normal activities are disturbed or prohibited. Police carry on unusual inspections of Falun Gong. Permit applications are often refused. Practitioners' applications for permanent residency or citizenship are delayed or refused. Practitioners are not allowed to use public facilities. Even worse, practitioners are unjustly jailed under false charges and found "guilty" in courts. To add insult to injury, the news media do not fairly report these cases.

On December 21, 2000, some Singapore practitioners gathered at MacRitchie Reservoir Park to grieve over 107 practitioners who died in China due to the persecution. The Singaporean police became unreasonably involved and arrested some practitioners. Zhang Zhaopei was one of them.

"The Ministry of Education unexpectedly cancelled my scholarship," said Zhang Zhaopei. "I had to ask for help from my parents in China and had to get a bank student loan. The contract to work in Singapore for three years after graduation was then still valid."

In June 2004, Zhang Zhaopei graduated from Nanyang Technological University. In February 2005, he got a job offer from Compex, a Singapore company.

"According to convention, students like me who have signed contracts with the Ministry of Education would receive a letter of invitation from the immigration bureau around graduation time, to apply for permanent residency. Once becoming a permanent resident, there would be no restriction to apply for a job. I never received such a letter."

At the end of February, Zhang Zhaopei went to the immigration bureau in person to inquire about the letter. The immigration official said they would respond in one month. Since the company that hired him really needed him in hurry, Zhang Zhaopei went to the immigration bureau again early in March and asked to speed up the process. The immigration official agreed to give an answer in two weeks. On March 19, Zhang Zhaopei once again went to inquire of the status after not receiving any response. They told him the response letter had been mailed but it was mailed to an old address.

Zhang Zhaopei said, "I immediately went to my old landlord that same day and asked about the letter from the immigration bureau. No letter was received. In the following week I would ask the landlord almost every day if the letter had arrived, but it hadn't."

On March 26, Zhang Zhaopei went to the immigration bureau again and inquired about the letter. The immigration official said, "There is no record of him in the computer database since the year 2002 and asked him to fill out the application form again and then wait for two more weeks."

On April 7, Zhang Zhaopei received a letter from the immigration bureau rejecting his application for permanent residency.

"I went to the immigration bureau to ask for the reason. They said there was no reason and suggested I apply for an Employment Pass (EP) instead. But I knew there was a reason. The only reason - that I am a Falun Gong practitioner," said Zhang Zhaopei.

Zhang Zhaopei stated, when he and other practitioners went to public places to clarify the truth and spread the Fa, police often checked their IDs and sometimes took them away. Once he was taken to a local police station and met a police officer he knew from before. The police officer told him, "Everybody knows it is aimed at Falun Gong. As long as you do not appear during the Chinese leaders visit, you will not get warnings."

Zhang's wife said, "These things brought tremendous pressure to our parents. My mother was so worried for us and was unable to sleep well, which had affected her health."

The company that Zhang worked for submitted his EP application. After not getting any response for six weeks, the company's human resources department sent a person to the Ministry of Manpower to inquire and was told, "There are reasons for not issuing the permit, but we are not going to tell you."

On June 1, the company received the official notice that Zhang Zhaopei's EP application was refused.

Zhang Zhaopei said, "Since my student visa has been canceled after I graduated, during that period I had to often visit the immigration bureau to get a Social Visit Pass. The first pass was valid for one month; the second one was only valid for two weeks. On June 2, when I applied for the third time, the official said, "sorry, both of your Social Visit Pass applications were refused; tomorrow is the last day."

"We do not want to go back China to suffer the persecution," Zhang Zhaopei said. He and his wife had no other ways but to seek asylum.

With the help of the Canadian government, Zhang Zhaopei and his wife obtained Canadian refugee status and arrived without incident in Toronto on October 5, 2005.

October 14, 2005