WoonsocketCall (Rhode Island): Help stop the torture of innocents

JOANNE DUHAMEL, N. SMITHFIELD HIGH

February 09, 2003

My name is Linda Zhang. I am a resident in Rhode Island and an electrical engineer working for a high tech corporation in North Smithfield.

I am writing to you to ask for help in the plight of my brother and his wife who are being held in a Chinese jail and labor camp respectively, thousands of miles away. I fear for their lives and am trying to do all I can to help them.

The sooner more people learn about the tortures and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, the sooner these grave human rights violations will end. It can have a tremendous impact.

This is why I ask you, from the bottom of my heart, to help rescue my beloved relatives from what could be a death from extreme tortures and abuse.

This is their story. After Jiang Zemin started persecuting Falun Gong in July 1999, my brother and his wife have been arrested and imprisoned several times. Our family life has been severely disrupted. In December 1999, my brother and his wife decided to go to Beijing to appeal to the Chinese government to end the torture and persecution of Falun Gong. They were arrested immediately and put into the local detention center in Shenzhou City, Hebei Province.

My brother was sentenced to three and a half years of imprisonment in June 2000 and not allowed to appeal. My brother is currently being held at Jidong Prison in Fengnan City, Hebei Province.

In addition, the phone at my parent's house is being monitored and they are deprived of privacy. It is said that my sister in law's recent arrest in April or May 2002 is because my phone conversation with her mentioned Falun Gong. I just heard that she was sentenced to three years in jail without trial and was sent to Shijiazhuang Labor Camp. Since the day she was taken away from home, no relative has been allowed to meet her.

Please help to rescue my brother, Ruifeng Zhang, and sister-in-law, Yanxiang Xu and the thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have been illegally and immorally imprisoned in China. They are enduring a persecution that in severity and magnitude is way beyond imagined here in the West, and the most brutal in Chinese history.

And it is simply due to the fact that people want to practice exercises and meditate, becoming good people following the universal principles of "Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance."

I often wondered why there was so much unfairness, evil, and terror in the world. Although this does not have a simple answer, one thing I do know is that it is our moral obligation to stand up against it whenever we see it. I have always admired and been inspired by an American, Martin Luther King Jr., who once said, "Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere."

The American country and its people have always been strong advocated for human rights, and with their kindhearted nature speak out against injustice.

My dear colleagues, friends, and kind-hearted people, please help rescue my brother, Ruifeng Zhang, and sister-in-law, Yanxiang Xu. You can write to your congressmen and senators or other officials, helping to publicize their plight through the media, and requesting their release and the freedom to travel abroad.

Or, you may join the efforts of Friends of Falun Gong USA (www.fofg.org), a US-based group that is working to stop the persecution of Falun Gong.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: A free Falun Gong workshop is scheduled today from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Woonsocket Harris Public Library, Clinton Street.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=6990427&BRD=1712&PAG=461&dept_id=24358&rfi=6

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