The Toronto Star: [group] member who fled China describes terror in detention

CANADIAN PRESS

OTTAWA - While Prime Minister Jean Chr閠ien and business leaders continued exploring ways of doing business in China yesterday, a Falun Dafa practitioner in Ottawa described her escape from China after repeated arrests.

Shu-mei Zhang stood silently at a news conference as her daughter LingDi Zhang read her mother's statement in English describing surveillance by Chinese authorities and three arrests as she meditated in a park. The Chinese embassy in Canada issued a statement later yesterday denying her claims.

Zhang's husband, Kunlun, returned to Canada last month after serving two months in a labour camp for practising the outlawed rituals of the [group], also known as Falun Gong. His wife was last detained in November after almost daily interrogations.

"The police took me from my home without any reason," she said. "They locked me in an iron cage without any furniture at all."

"I sat on the floor for one day and one night while my mother was staying home alone. During my detention, they forcefully took my home key and ransacked my home and took away all Falun Dafa books and materials."

It was the third time her home was ransacked, she said.

Finally, on Feb. 2, she slipped away from her home, ultimately escaping an Orwellian-style dragnet after 12 days underground. She arrived in Canada, with help from Canadian consular officials, on Thursday.

Her ailing 90-year-old mother remained behind. "I did not do anything wrong," Zhang said. "The terror I have experienced is happening to millions of innocent Falun Gong practitioners in China."

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Falun Dafa says 143 practitioners have died since a government crackdown began 18 months ago. A Hong Kong-based rights group says it has tallied at least 112 deaths.

In a report issued last Monday, the human-rights watchdog said torture and ill-treatment of detainees is widespread and systematic in China. Zhang Kunlun has said he was tortured in prison.

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