(Minghui.org) Canadian Members of Parliament (MPs) Joan Crockatt and James Lunney issued a news release calling on China to immediately release Yinghua Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner currently imprisoned in Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province. Ms. Chen is on a hunger strike to protest her illegal detention.
Ms. Chen was unlawfully arrested by officers from the Qiaodong Police Station and the Shijiazhuang Domestic Security Division on March 12, 2014. She has been on a hunger strike since then at the No. 2 Shijiazhuang Detention Center and is in critical condition. Ms. Chen's lawyer was able to meet with her and passed word of her current situation to the family.
Below is the original text of the news release of April 17, 2014:
Calgary, AB – Joan Crockatt, MP for Calgary Centre and James Lunney, MP for Nanaimo Alberni, today called upon the Chinese government to immediately release a Falun Gong practitioner who is on Day 31 of a hunger strike.
“Yinghua Chen’s life is in imminent danger,” MP Crockatt said Thursday. “Chen’s father, a Calgarian and a Canadian citizen, was turned away from seeing her yesterday at the No. 2 Shijiazhuang Detention Centre and he is desperately concerned over her safety, as am I,” Crockatt added.
“We want to see immediate action in this case,” MP Lunney said. He represents Ms. Chen’s Canadian brother Yingyi Chen.
Mr. Chen told MP Lunney his sister has been jailed 300 km from Beijing, and said his sister was supporting a friend who was doing nothing more than holding a banner outside the prison saying she wanted to visit her father inside. Both were arrested and incarcerated on March 12, without charges being laid. Ms. Chen is a Falun Gong practitioner and poses no threat to the Chinese government.
Canadian Foreign Affairs is seeking information on Ms. Chen and whether her father Zhiming Chen will be permitted to see her.
Chen’s mother Jinling Huang, a former engineer who was herself imprisoned and tortured in China for practicing Falun Gong, was “rescued” by Canada in 2007 and also lives in Calgary.
“I am deeply worried. Yinghua’s life is in danger every single second,” Ms. Huang said. For the past two days Huang has been on a sit-in in front of the Chinese Consulate in Calgary, but she said the consulate refused to accept her letter advocating for her daughter’s release.
The Conservative MPs joined together in light of the dire situation to call on the Government of China to allow Mr. Chen to see his daughter and to immediately release her so her medical needs may be attended to.
Canada continues to express grave concerns about human rights abuses in China, including the imprisonment of political prisoners such as Falun Gong practitioners.
The original News Release can be downloaded here
More reports about the efforts to rescue Yinghua Chen: Calgary, Canada: A Mother Urgently Calls for Help to Rescue Her Daughter from a Chinese Detention Center (Photos) Canadian Couple Calls for Release of Detained Daughter in China
