Daily Review (California): Chinese teenager seeking asylum defies Chinese policies

By Justin Jouvenal and Emily Fancher

August 22, 2002

(Clearwisdom.net) - DALY CITY -- At just 18, Qi Ling knows what it means to defy a government.

When police ordered her to leave a 1999 protest in support of Falun Gong in northeastern China, she refused. She said a police officer smashed a baton on her head and arrested her.

When her high school principal demanded she sign a confession saying she renounced Falun Gong in 2001, she refused. She said her principal expelled her.

With few options left, save giving up her spiritual practice, Ling (not her real name) left her family in China and fled to the United States, hoping to begin a new life.

Today, Ling continues to practice Falun Gong in the bedroom of a Daly City home, waiting to hear whether she will be granted asylum or returned to China and an uncertain future.

She remains defiant.

"I'm old enough to know what is the truth and what is not," said Ling, reflecting on the Chinese government campaign to paint Falun Gong as [Jiang's slanderous term omitted.]

"(Falun Gong) is good for me and it's good for society," she said, speaking through a translator.

Ling is one of thousands of Chinese who seek asylum in the U.S. each year. [...]

Ling's case is unusual because few young women navigate the asylum process alone. She arrived in the Bay Area earlier this year and recently interviewed with an Immigration and Naturalization Service officer, who will decide whether she is granted asylum. The INS does not comment on asylum cases.

The willowy Ling recounted her story in a quiet but unwavering voice during a recent interview in San Francisco at the offices of Baughman and Wang, the firm representing her.

Her attorneys asked that her real name, hometown and other facts be kept hidden to avoid any reprisals against her family in China.

Ling, whose parents do not follow Falun Gong, embraced the practice as a 15-year-old after a schoolmate introduced it to her.

Falun Gong combines meditation, physical exercise and moral teachings to try to improve practitioners' physical and emotional health.

Ling said she was under intense academic pressure at the time and experienced emotional distress until she began practicing Falun Gong.

Ling practiced in the school's dorms, where only a handful of the 400 students were [practitioners]. But two years after her 1999 beating and arrest, she said she was transferred to another school where Falun Gong was not tolerated.

She said her new principal, who learned that she practiced through her school record, ordered her to sign a statement rejecting her spiritual practice. She refused, and she said she was suspended and ultimately expelled for her beliefs.

"I felt really bad," said Ling, who hopes to enter an American high school in the fall as a senior. "I felt I was entitled to an education and it was taken away from me."

Students who follow Falun Gong are routinely expelled from Chinese schools, said Steve W. Baughman, whose firm is representing Ling. Punishments for practitioners range from "loss of employment to imprisonment," according to a 2001 State Department report.

Ling and her parents decided she should come to the United States to start over. They feared that as an adult (she recently turned 18), she would be a target for authorities to arrest and jail.

Ling came to the Bay Area this year accompanied by her mother. She traveled on a tourist visa [...] Ling's mother has since returned to China.

Ling is here legally through October and is staying with a friend of her family, who did not want to be interviewed.

Ling said she feels strongly about Falun Gong because it teaches "truthfulness, benevolence and forbearance," and encourages moral action. She believes the Chinese government tries to squash the movement because it [irrationally fears] its potential for political power.

Founded in northeastern China in 1992, Falun Gong has tens of millions of followers in China, probably more members than the Communist Party, according to Steve Baughman.

[...]

Baughman said Ling's harassment was typical of Falun Gong asylum-seekers. He said Ling's case for asylum is strong.

"I think she has a very good chance," Baughman said. "We should probably know in a week."

[...]

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