Media Advisory: Canadian Student Arrested in China Regains Freedom and Returns to Canada

MONTREAL, June 21, 2001 -- Falun Gong practitioner, landed immigrant of Canada, and Concordia University student, Ying Zhu, who was arrested in China on her way to visit her ailing mother last month has regained her freedom and returned to Montreal at 1am this morning.

Ms. Zhu will hold a news conference on June 22, 2001 to recount the nightmare of her more than one month of loss of freedom. She will also express her sincere thanks to the many Canadian people who supported the strong campaign that led to her release.

News Conference

11:00am, Friday June 22

Conference Room, Rights and Democracy

1001 de Maisonneuve Blvd. East, Suite 1100

Montreal, Quebec

Background Information:

Ms. Ying Zhu went missing when she went to China to visit her husband and her ailing mother on May 10. Ying's mother had undergone two heart operations and urgently wished to see her daughter. Her family was notified of her arrest about two weeks later. She was arrested by the notorious "610 Office" created to persecute Falun Gong practitioners.

China just passed new laws that legalize the execution of Falun Gong practitioners. In the past week, there has been a dramatic increase of death cases of Falun Gong practitioners, including a disabled man. A woman was severely beaten and raped by a policeman.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation and exercise practice that focuses on Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. Falun Gong is practiced by millions of people in over 40 countries around the world but has been persecuted in China since 1999. To date at least 233 Falun Dafa practitioners have died of persecution, often due to torture.

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For more information:

www.falundafa.org (about the practice of Falun Dafa)

www.faluninfo.net (about the current situation in China)

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