(Clearwisdom.net) Ling Pan, a practitioner from Japan, recently wrote an appeal letter calling for the international community to rescue her sister who was arrested in Thailand on March 14, 2008.
Ms. Qi Pan is an internal medicine doctor. She was arrested in front of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand along with several other fellow Falun Gong practitioners, for protesting the ongoing persecution of the practice.
Below is the appeal letter by Ling Pan.
To the United Nations, all governments and organizations that uphold justice:
My name is Ling Pan and I am a practitioner of Falun Gong in Japan. I am hereby appealing for the release of my sister, Qi Pan.
Both my sister and I started practicing Falun Gong in 1996 while were still in college. My sister Qi, unmarried, was born on June 26, 1974. She graduated from the Dalian University of Medicine in 1999 and practiced internal medicine. She lived in the Ganzijing District of Dalian City, in Liaoning Province. Since her early childhood, she was very weak and often fell sick. She started practicing Falun Gong in 1996 and soon became very healthy. Her life became very joyful. As Falun Gong teaches practitioners to follow the universal principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," and guides us to be good and better persons, before the persecution started in July 1999, we and practitioners in our neighborhood all enjoyed peace and joy while striving to be good people. During the course of our cultivation, many touching stories happened.
After then-Chinese president Jiang Zemin and the Chinese Communist regime started persecuting Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, my sister and I rarely had opportunity to meet. My sister was a doctor and she told patients the truth about Falun Gong whenever possible. For this reason, she was often dismissed from her job and had to look for a new one.
While working at the North Dailian Corporate Hospital, she was not allowed any training opportunities because she was a practitioner. The director once claimed, "If Qi one day gets arrested, this training will be wasted, so I would rather train a nurse." During the 2000 New Year, my sister sang a song about Falun Gong and the persecution at the hospital and she was consequently laid off.
My sister once worked at an emergency room at the Dailian Business Development District Hospital as an on-call doctor. On one occasion, a patient gave her and the ambulance driver 300 Chinese dollars in appreciation. The driver wanted to split the money between them. Qi said, "I am a Falun Gong practitioner, and I never take this kind of money." The driver then reported my sister to hospital director Li Xuezhong. The director and staff from his office asked my sister to promise to abide the persecution policy and denounce Falun Gong. Qi refused and consequently lost her job again. In Communist China people like my sister, who strive to be good, are often punished. Dr. Zhang Xilian, director of the emergency room witnessed this.
Our parents once ran an Internet café, and students came to access the Internet during lunchtime. Some spent all their money on the Internet and thus could not buy lunch. Qi would often talk with them about Falun Gong and advise them not to waste time and money on the Internet. She would waive their Internet fee so that they could buy lunch.
One time Qi ran into a child who got lost and was wearing thin clothes. She immediately took off her sweater and gave it to him. At that time, she was looking for job and had no savings. The sweater was actually a gift from our parents and for several years she didn't buy any clothes for herself. Instead, whenever she accumulated some savings, she donated the money to practitioners who were forced to leave their homes to avoid persecution, or helped fund the printing of Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials.
For practicing Falun Gong, Qi was arrested and detained in the notorious Masanjia Forced Labor Camp for a total of 16 months. She was also detained at the Yaojia Detention Center and the Dailian Forced Labor Camp. While in detention, she was tortured, and consequently her lower body still feels numb today.
I was also arrested several times, and was once detained for over two months. I was teaching in a high school and my job was suspended for two years. In 2003, several police officers from the Haimao Police Station broke into my office to arrest me without notifying the school leaders. Looking back at these experiences in China, I am still scared and I feel so lucky to have been able to flee China.
We both love our professions and love China. But the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) fears the principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance," and persecutes kindhearted practitioners. It even harvests organs from living practitioners for profit. The CCP atrocities even surpass the Holocaust committed by the Nazis.
In January 2006, I came to Japan. My sister also wanted to come to study. However, due to the persecution, she could not get a passport. In January 2007, she managed to flee to Thailand, a democratic country that respects freedom of belief. My whole family was relieved upon learning this good news.
However, the CCP not only arrests and persecute practitioners in China but also exports its persecution policy to other countries. On the morning of March 14, 2008, five practitioners were conducting a daily peaceful protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Thailand. At around 10:00 a.m. six police officers suddenly came to the site and arrested all five practitioners. Three of them, Qi Pan, Guiying Liu, and Hong Lin, were practitioners who fled to Thailand from China. Qi and Guiying were UN refugees, and Hong held a "UN Protection" letter.
A police officer at the site said, "We know you are good people, but we can't help you as we are forced to arrest you." Another officer said, "We don't want to arrest you, but our superiors ordered us to do this."
I hope that the Thai government including Thai delegates to the United Nations will do a better job in protecting Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP's pressure on Thailand is actually an insult to this Buddhist country.