AFP: Chinese Falungong [practitioner] from Japan sentenced to labor camp

Saturday, 13-Jul-2002 4:10AM

BEIJING, July 13 (AFP) - A Chinese Falungong [practitioner] who had migrated to Japan has been sentenced to 18 months in a labor camp in China after she distributed material belonging to the banned spiritual group on a return visit, her mother said Saturday.

Yoko Kaneko, 37, a Chinese citizen who moved to Japan several years ago, was sentenced last month, her mother, Ye Guizhi, told AFP from her home in northern China's Heilongjiang province.

Ye said the family received a notice from the police last month stating Kaneko, whose Chinese name is Luo Rong, saying Kaneko had been sentenced on June 24.

"It's not fair, but they sentenced her anyway and there's nothing we can do about it. ... I want to see how she is, but they didn't say we can visit her," Ye said.

Kaneko is believed to be kept at the Beijing Number 574 Labor Camp, according to Shinly Shaw, a Falungong practitioner in Japan.

No trial was held as China's labor camp system allows people to be sentenced without trial to up to three years in a labor camp - a sort of prison where inmates are forced to work while being "reeducated".

Kaneko was arrested in May along with two Japanese Falungong [practitioners] for distributing fliers and VCDs about Falungong on their way from their hotel to Beijing's Tiananmen Square, where they had planned to unfurl a banner to protest against China's suppression of Falungong.

The other two women, both Japanese citizens, were expelled.

Kaneko migrated to Japan in 1999 and is a permanent resident of Japan and married to a Japanese man, but not yet a Japanese citizen.

Her husband, Atsushi Kaneko, also a Falungong [practitioner], had requested the Japanese government press the Chinese authorities to release her as soon as possible.

The Japanese foreign ministry had promised to "try to do its best" but admitted the chances of her being immediately released were slim because of her Chinese nationality.

The three women are the latest in a string of overseas Falungong [practitioners] who have come to Beijing in the past year to protest against China's nearly three-year-old ban against Falungong.

Foreign nationals are usually expelled within a day but China has jailed overseas Falungong [practitioners] who are still Chinese citizens for conducting Falungong activities.

Falungong was banned by China in July 1999 [...] and since then tens of thousands of Chinese Falungong [practitioners] have been sent to labor camps and jails.

http://www.ptd.net/webnews/wed/ct/Qchina-japan-sect.RJJc_ClD.html