Liverpool Echo (UK): My wife is going home to torture

Mar 4 2003

THE husband of a pregnant Chinese woman facing deportation claims she will be tortured if she returns home.

Jinfei Zhang, 25, a university student of Edge Lane, Liverpool, says a clerical error meant his wife, Lili Lin, could not appeal when she was turned down for asylum in the UK.

And, as a practitioner of Falun Gong, a type of meditation banned by the Chinese authorities, she faced certain persecution.

He said: "I fear the worst for her. She sought asylum because hundreds of practitioners have been tortured and the authorities over there know who she is.

"Friends of ours have already been imprisoned and I know there is a practice of forced abortions, so we are very scared for our baby." Jinfei, a Ph.D student in electrical engineering at Liverpool University, claims Lili ran out of time to appeal against the refused application. He said paperwork informing her she had to leave was sent to the wrong address.

Lili, 28, from Fujian province in Southern China, applied for asylum in Manchester in October, 2001, on the grounds of being a Falun Gong practitioner.

She moved to Liverpool last year when she married Jinfei, but notice of her rejected appeal was sent to her former home.

She was arrested last Wednesday and is being held in a detention centre at Gatwick airport awaiting deportation on March 7. A medical examination revealed she was six weeks pregnant.

[...]

Friends of the couple have been lobbying MPs for a stay of the process. Peaceful protests have been held outside the immigration office in Liverpool's Water Street.

Mary Cann, a mother-of-seven and Falun Gong devotee, came to Liverpool to show her support.

She said: "Lili is a lovely gentle woman who has done nothing wrong but promote the principles of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance that are the teachings of Falun Gong.

"Despite a huge number of practitioners, the Chinese government banned the practice in 1999 as it had not been given to people by the Communist party."

A spokesman for Amnesty International said: "We are aware of considerable human rights abuses against hundreds of people practising Falun Gong in China.

"There has been a 24-hour vigil outside the Chinese Embassy in London and many groups are campaigning against the persecution of practitioners."

The Home Office said it would not comment on individual cases, but confirmed it had received a large number of calls about Lili Lin.

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