Canberra Times (Australia): Newlywed's visa woes stall trip to meet in-laws

April 3, 2005 Sunday Final Edition

Resident Phillip Law is planning a weekend visit to China to see his in-laws. Problem is, the embassy of China has denied him a visa three times in the past year because he practises Falun Gong. Mr Law, in defiance of orders from Foreign Affairs Minister Alexander Downer's office, staged a protest outside the Chinese embassy in Yarralumla yesterday. He said he wanted the embassy to reconsider his blacklisting, despite the danger he faces when he sets foot on Chinese soil.

"I'll ask them to justify [their decision], and hopefully with people's help, I'll get a visa to visit my wife's parents in China, just for a weekend, and then come back," the 40-year-old from Sydney said. "That's part of a normal life for anyone, and they should let me do it."

He would not renounce his faith, and it was both impractical and culturally insulting to fly his relatives to Australia. Falun Gong is a traditional body and mind practice -whose tenets are truth, compassion and forbearance -and its followers are persecuted by the Communist Party of China through imprisonment, internment in illegal labour camps, torture, brainwashing and even execution.

Mr Law's wife, Shirley Xie, 27, is also a Falun Gong practitioner. She said she had spent two years and three months in a labour camp, and another two months at a brainwashing camp. She came to Australia after Mr Law successfully petitioned Foreign Affairs for her rescue in 2004.

Mr Law, who has lived in Australia for 25 years, said he had his own horrible experience with China three years ago when he was kidnapped and interrogated for three days and nights. When he refused to denounce his faith, he thought he'd be executed. Instead, he was deported. All this and Mr Law won't be swayed. He must visit his parents-in-law for the first time.

"They might whisk me away and kill me," he said of what could happen in China, "but I have to do what I think is right. "I'm doing nothing wrong, [the embassy is] just punishing me, I find it totally ridiculous."

The Chinese embassy could not be contacted for comment yesterday.