National Post: Falun Gong member recounts 30 days of mental torture Returns from China

The Gazette

MONTREAL - Ying Zhu arrived back in Canada a free woman as suddenly and as secretively as she disappeared in China as a perceived threat to state security.

The Montreal resident, Concordia University student and Falun Gong practitioner surprised the friends who had been working tirelessly to find her when she arrived home early on Thursday morning.

Yesterday, she recounted the tale of her disappearance and detention at the hands of Chinese authorities and offered a glimpse at the murky mechanisms of China's crackdown on the Falun Gong.

"It was a nightmare," Ms. Zhu said, looking tired with bags under her eyes, but remaining composed as she described her experiences. "I was kidnapped, I was thrown in a room for 30 days and I was mentally tortured."

Ms. Zhu was last seen May 10 on a Hong Kong train platform. She was on her way to her hometown in China to visit her parents and husband, but she never arrived.

Friends back home were alarmed, at first, then terrified when they learned she had been arrested at a "610" office, the security force responsible for enforcing China's ban on the Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation and exercise practice.

As Ms. Zhu tells it, customs officials in China seemed almost to be expecting her at the border. When she showed her passport she was hauled into a back room, her luggage searched and Falun Gong materials she was carrying seized.

Ms. Zhu was taken under the cover of darkness to a detention centre where she was left in a room with a bed, chairs and a toilet, and kept under surveillance.

A man who claimed to be a psychologist paid her several visits and threateningly told her if she refused to renounce Falun Gong, she would be labelled a mental patient and put in an asylum.

After 30 days of being watched by up to three people 24 hours a day while she ate, slept and used the bathroom, Ms. Zhu was released into the care of her parents and put under house arrest.

Chinese authorities held on to her passport and forbade her to contact friends in Canada. Then, on Monday, Ms. Zhu was told she was allowed to leave if she signed a statement saying she would not cause trouble for the government or tell what happened to her.

But she said yesterday she felt compelled to speak out on behalf of thousands of other Falun Gong practitioners imprisoned in China, because she is convinced the campaign mobilized in Canada to press for her release played a role in her release. A day after friends in Canada held a press conference, Ms. Zhu was allowed to meet briefly with her sister-in-law.

"I am so fortunate to have had the support of so many of the Canadian people and my friends, but I cannot forget those who are not so lucky," she said. "From this experience I've learned that a strong international voice for justice brings a good end."

http://www.nationalpost.com/news/national/story.html?f=/stories/20010623/600154.html

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