Toronto Star: Falun Dafa [Practitioner] out of labour camp - Relieved to be in Canada

By Dale Anne Freed, Staff reporter

March 1, 2002

Freedom of speech has not come easily for Shenli Lin.

After two years of imprisonment in Chinese labour camps for espousing his spiritual beliefs, the 48-year-old Falun Dafa practitioner was finally released after pressure from Amnesty International, the Canadian government and a determined Canadian wife.

"I feel so happy to be free and in a democratic environment where I can say whatever I want to say without fear of being jailed," Lin said yesterday in Mandarin, which was translated as he spoke at a Toronto news conference a month after his release and several days after his arrival in Canada.

"After I left the Chinese labour camp, which is filled with inhumane treatment, I'm very lucky to have come to this free land," said Lin, whose wife, Jinyu Li, 43, a naturalized Canadian from Montreal, sat next to him.

Lin said he is now going to begin a campaign to get his younger brother, also a Falun Dafa practitioner, out of a labour camp in China.

Lin was arrested and taken into custody in December, 1999, after he and his wife petitioned the government to end its persecution of Falun Dafa, also know as Falun Gong. His wife was deported to Canada within 48 hours.

On arrival back in Canada, Li continuously pleaded her husband's case -- staging a vigil outside the Chinese embassy in Ottawa.

Lin is believed to have been detailed "for no other reason than his peaceful efforts to exercise his spiritual beliefs," said Alex Neves, secretary general for Amnesty International Canada, which had been campaigning to secure Lin's release.

During his two years in labour camp, Lin said he was beaten for his beliefs and underwent unsuccessful attempts by officials to brainwash him.

Since Lin's arrest, the Canadian government had regularly been in touch with Chinese authorities to remind them that he was married to a Canadian citizen, said Raynald Doiron, a spokesperson for the foreign affairs department.

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