SCMP: Help free my husband, Ottawa mission urged

Saturday, February 10, 2001 Li Jinyu hopes a major trade mission from Canada could help pressure Beijing into freeing her husband, who was sent to a labour camp for belonging to Falun Gong. Ms Li was arrested along with husband Lin Shenli in 1999, when the couple visited an appeals office to suggest the Government stop persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. She was quickly deported as a Canadian citizen, but her husband, who was applying for Canadian citizenship, was imprisoned and last January moved to a labour camp. Since the arrests, Ms Li, who lives in Montreal, has written to Canadian politicians and officials, but so far Ottawa has declined to intervene. She hopes Prime Minister Jean Chretien will use next week's trade mission to highlight her husband's case and that of other Falun Gong members jailed and tortured for their beliefs. "I don't understand why the Chinese Government is arresting practitioners of Falun Gong," she said. "When there is so much corruption in the country they should be encouraging something like this, which encourages people to be good." Her hopes for her husband's freedom were raised last month by the release of the Chinese Canadian professor Zhang Kunlun. The academic said he had been tortured, brainwashed and sentenced to three years' confinement in a labour camp for practising Falun Gong. Professor Zhang's release followed widespread publicity of his case and behind-the-scenes pressure by Ottawa. But officials point out that in his case they were acting on behalf of a Canadian citizen, and this does not apply to Lin.