(Clearwisdom.net) Mr. Yu Ya'ou, a PhD candidate at the Chinese Academy of Science, South China Botanical Garden, was deprived of his right to defend his thesis because he included a sentence expressing his gratitude to Falun Dafa. After the New Year, the leadership in the South China Botanical Garden, under instructions from the 610 Office, tried to persecute Mr. Yu by using enrollment regulations and student management provisions of the school. They also told his father to report to the 610 Office and help them send his son to a brainwashing center.

On March 22, 2010, Mr. Yu received a tip from one of his professors. He said, "Hi, Yu Ya'ou. I wanted to let you know that we sent an overnight letter to you at your father's address." When the letter arrived, Yu refused to accept it, because he knew that the school had sent it under pressure from the 610 Office.

On April 8, the person in charge of household registration at the school told him that he had been dismissed from the graduate school and that his household registration had been changed back to his original city.

Yu Ya'ou has completed all of the school's scholastic requirements and has submitted his thesis. We have to question by what authority the school deprived him of his right to defend his thesis, based solely on his expression of gratitude to Falun Dafa. We question and denounce the school's denial of Yu's rights because of his faith. Furthermore, one of the officials of the school said, "In this situation, Yu Ya'ou must be sent to the brainwashing center. Our original plan was to send him to the brainwashing center for three months after his graduation."

Under these serious and threatening conditions, Yu Ya'ou was forced to leave the school in order to avoid life-threatening persecution.

Because Yu Ya'ou refused to accept the change of residence certificate, someone from the security branch of the school called Mr. Yu's father and pressured him to help them force his son to attend the brainwashing center in Guangzhou. They even tried to convince his father that Yu Ya'ou would be allowed to be granted his degree and get a job after the brainwashing.

Before this incident, Mr. Yu and his wife, Li Shan Shan, were arrested and taken to a forced labor camp by the Security brigade police on June 9, 2008. They were taken by force to the Railroad Convalescence Home where they were brainwashed. The brainwashing center extorted 50,000 yuan as "tuition" from Yu Ya'ou's parents.

According to police, Mr. Yu and his wife were arrested after the father of another Falun Gong practitioner reported them and his own son to the police.

The reason Chinese Communist Party personnel kept going to Yu Ya'ou's father to "settle the problems," is because both Ya'ou and his wife are unemployed. Ya'ou's father is the sole support for their family of four. As they were unable to get any concessions from Ya'ou, they tried to deceive, threaten, entrap, and coerce his father. They even went to his father's workplace to pressure his boss, vainly attempting to force Ya'ou's father to turn in his son.