SCMP: Japanese demands China free wife held as Falun Gong devotee

Friday, October 25, 2002

REUTERS/Bobby Yip

A Japanese man pleaded on Thursday for the release of his Chinese-born wife, jailed in a labor camp in China for publicizing the Falun Gong, a spiritual movement banned by Beijing's communist rulers. Atsushi Kaneko said he had flown to this remote luxury resort on Mexico's Baha peninsula to publicize his cause at a weekend gathering of leaders of 21 Pacific Rim countries attending the annual Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit.

"I have traveled thousands of miles from Japan to be here," Kaneko said. "The reason for my coming here is to ask more people to help rescue my wife from torture in a labor camp in China."

Just this week, the movement said it had sued Chinese President Jiang Zemin in a U.S. court for his alleged role in the jailing of the group's followers.

Kaneko said he visited his wife, Yoko, in August in a Chinese labor camp where she is serving an 18-month term. "Not only has she lost weight, but I could see she was suffering mentally," he said.

Yoko disappeared in May on a visit to her parents and Kaneko said her family later learned she had been arrested for publicizing the Falun Gong.

"She was slow and quiet, not even able to fix her eyes on me," Kaneko said. "I could not help wondering if she could survive the 18 months' labor camp life and come back to Japan alive."

Mexican highway police watched but took no action as about 20 seated demonstrators, some wearing their trademark yellow T-shirts printed with the [words] "China -- Free the jailed Falun Gong practitioners," sat cross-legged by the side of the road, their hands pressed together in meditation.

1,600 FEARED DEAD

The demonstrators said they planned to continue their roadside vigil until after [the Chinese dictator's] arrival later on Friday.

Falun Gong's U.S.-based information centre said on Tuesday it had filed a suit in an Illinois court and handed [the Chinese despot's] guards a legal complaint in Chicago, where he was visiting ahead of a meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush in Texas on Friday.

Falun Gong alleges that more than 1,600 followers have died as a result of abuse in police custody or detention centers since Beijing banned the movement in 1999 [...]

[...]

The activists staging the demonstration on the outskirts of the smart resort town of Cabo San Lucas at the tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula unfurled banners in Spanish reading "Truth, Compassion, Tolerance", and "The Falun Gong is good".

[...]

Activists have urged Bush to press [the Chinese leader] on human rights when the two leaders meet in Crawford, Texas on Friday.

[...]

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