Wharton Journal-Spectator (Texas): Falun Gong Followers Decry Persecution

Journal-Spectator News Editor

Two natives of Mainland China are traveling the Gulf Coast region in hopes of raising awareness of the plight of their families who remain in their homeland.

Ming Zeng, 44, a Katy resident, is a Chinese-educated geophysicist who came to the United States for her husband's schooling in 1998. Jason Wang, 38, of Houston, is a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Houston. Both are practitioners of Falun Gong, a decade-old philosophy of mind-body exercise and meditation. Their loved ones, still in China, are practitioners as well.

And they are being persecuted for it, Wang and Zeng said.

Wang said his mother had been drugged and put in a mental hospital. Now she has been released, but cannot travel. Authorities confiscated her passport.

"She is still under surveillance," said Wang, a native of the Jiangsu province. Wang came to Houston in 1996 for his education. He holds a doctorate in physics.

Zeng's concern is with her 70-year-old mother, who has been arrested twice, and her 38-year-old sister, who has been tortured, beaten, and sent to a forced labor camp. She has been enrolled in what Zeng called "brainwashing" classes.

"Many are driven to the point of mental collapse," said Zeng, a native of the Hunan Provence.

"I am very worried about my mother and sister."

Zeng and Wang have been making stops at newspapers throughout the region in hopes of spreading awareness among the American people. They hope that will translate into Washington exerting political pressure for reform in China.

"The campaign is to call for help in the United States to rescue those who have been persecuted in China," Wang said.

After being in Wharton last week, Zeng and Wang planned a press conference this Tuesday at the Chinese Consulate in Houston. A total of 39 Falun Gong practitioners with relatives in the United States have been identified as being persecuted in China. The rescue effort is being coordinated through the Falun Gong Association.

Three have kin in Texas. Beside Wang and Zeng, a third attends the University of Texas at Austin.