Family seeks asylum
Religious oppression in China led to wife's imprisonment
BY DAN PARKER SOUTH JETTY REPORTER

STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Seeking an island refuge Xufeng Lu poses for a photo at the south jetty on Sunday, July 1. Lu and her husband, Hai, are Chinese citizens who are applying for asylum in the United States. They said they hope Port Aransas can be their new home.

For many, Port Aransas is a vacation place to get away from the grind of workaday life.

But, for Xufeng Lu and her husband, Chuanhai Wang, this town is a much more meaningful refuge. For them, Port Aransas represents the possibility of a new life and freedom from the brutality and repression they have experienced at the hands of their native country's government.

Chuanhai (he goes by "Hai"), Lu and their 14-year-old son, Xing (pronounced "Sheeng") have been living in Port Aransas since last year. They came from China on temporary visas. Hai is a visiting scientist at the University of Texas at Austin Marine Science Institute, where he works as a biologist studying wetlands plants.

Their visas expire at the end of this month. That means they're expected to return to China. But Hai, 41, and Lu, 38, have decided to apply for asylum in the United States on the grounds that they have faced persecution in China for their religious faith.

Helping out STAFF PHOTO BY DAN PARKER Working as a volunteer, Xufeng Lu helps a customer at the Port Aransas Food Pantry on June 26. Lu and her husband, Chuanhai "Hai" Wang, said they are trying to give something back to the community because Port Aransans have helped them out so much. Lu and Hai are Chinese citizens who have been living in Port Aransas since last year. They are seeking asylum in the United States due to religious persecution in China.

Lu says she spent nine months and 13 days in 2000 and 2001 in a tough Chinese prison as Communist Party officials tried to force her, along with thousands of others, to recant allegiance to the spiritual practice of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa.

Created in the early 1990s by a former trumpet player and grain clerk in China named Li Hongzhi, Falun Gong is a mixture of Buddhism, Taoism and traditional Qigong exercises. The practice employs daily meditation. Within just a few years, the movement attracted hundreds of thousands of followers around the nation.

CHUANHAI "HAI" WANG

Hai took up Falun Gong after learning about it from a university colleague. He told Lu about it, and they took up the practice in earnest.

Lu said the exercise prescribed by Falun Gong has made her physically healthier. And, as she explains it, the spiritual side of the practice is simple and beautiful.

"Falun Gong teaches people to be good, to be kind and nice, to love other people," said Lu, who learned in school to speak English in addition to her native Chinese.

Lu said she does not consider Falun Gong to be a cult or even what she precisely would call a religion.

"But we do believe in God," she said. "Our teacher tells us to behave well and get better and better and be kind to other people in the world."

Falun Gong's rapid growth has alarmed China's top Communist government officials.

"Falun Gong is threatening to China's leadership precisely because it includes a remarkable cross section of people - peasants and professors, rich and poor - devoted to an organization that is not the Chinese Communist Party," reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal wrote in a 2001 New York Times article. "No matter that the group, which China's top leaders have labeled an evil cult, has no political goals and is only loosely organized … ."

In 1999 and 2000, thousands of Falun Gong practitioners gathered at Tiananmen Square to protest their government's treatment. By then, the Chinese government had launched a massive campaign to eradicate Falun Gong through thousands of arrests, domestic spying, violence and other methods.

Lu wanted to go to Tiananmen Square to protest, too, but she hesitated. She knew she might go to jail and possibly be killed by authorities.

"On the other hand, I was sickened by seeing our Dafa verbally assaulted and assailed by the evil forces within the Chinese Communist Party," Lu wrote in a 12-page statement of her case to American immigration officials. "I knew within my heart how good Falun Dafa is. … We are told to behave according to the standard of truthfulness, benevolence and endurance."

Lu thought long and hard, then decided to go to Tiananmen Square to protest. Hai, who preferred to practice Falun Gong in secret, argued against his wife's decision to protest. But she was resolute.

Lu arrived at Tiananmen Square on Dec. 8, 2000.

"It was difficult for us Falun Gong to go to the square, because there were many people standing there to ask (visitors) if they were Falun Gong," Lu wrote. "If someone answered, 'Yes,' he or she would be arrested.

"So, when I went there, I bought a balloon, talked with other people and then walked quickly through a group of secret policemen to arrive at the square. There, I saw other disciples who were shouting, 'Falun Dafa is good!' So I bravely held a banner on which was written 'Falun Dafa is good!' Within seconds, we were arrested."

Lu spent more than nine months in prison where, she said, she and many other Falun Gong followers endured cruel conditions that included beatings.

She served her time in a labor camp where prison officials used a variety of methods to force Falun Gong followers to abandon their faith, Lu said. They were forced to repeatedly watch a video showing disciples allegedly recanting their beliefs. They were shown videos and newspapers that denounced Falun Gong and the movement's leader.

Defiant Falun Gong members were doused with water and electrocuted or forced to stand straight up against a wall for hours on end, Lu wrote.

After some months, Lu began to suspect that prison officials were preparing to hit her with severe torture to get her to renounce her beliefs.

"At that point, I realized that no matter how they tortured me, and no matter what they coerced from me, my real beliefs would not change," Lu wrote. "They could indeed make me 'recant,' but it would be false and superficial. My beliefs would remain exactly the same … ."

She falsely recanted. After that, prison workers did not torture her, but a brainwashing campaign continued. She said she was forced to rewrite other recanted practitioners' essays and read propaganda describing Communist Party leaders as heroes.

She was forced to write critical things about Falun Gong and deface a picture of the Falun Gong leader.

"I equate this action with lack of respect to our master, and with blasphemy of God," Lu wrote. "But I went ahead and did it, because I was so afraid for myself and for my family, that I did not have a choice."

Not long after that, she was released from prison. Police continued to periodically check on her at her home and warn her against going back to Falun Gong. Neighbors, apparently cooperating with police, spied on Lu and Hai. The family's phone was tapped too, Hai said.

Meanwhile, Hai applied for a program in which China would allow a group of scientists to study in the United States for less than two years. The idea was for Hai to learn from American scientists and then return to benefit China with that knowledge.

Hai was accepted, and the Chinese government granted him a visa. Miraculously, Lu and Xing also were granted visas to join Hai in the United States. It might seem puzzling that the Communist government would allow Lu to leave the country, given that she and her family were disgruntled and might take the opportunity to defect.

But it's not so mystifying to Lu.

"I think God arranged everything," she said. "I explain it like that. … God helped my whole family here. And because of that, I have a responsibility to tell people the fact about what (persecution is) happening in China."

Hai arrived May 1, 2006. Lu and Xing arrived Aug. 1. Xing attended Brundrett Middle School last year and will be a freshman at Port Aransas High School this fall.

Hai, Lu and Xing never had been outside China before they arrived in the U.S. They have been enchanted by the freedom - religious and otherwise - they have found in America.

They say they are grateful for the kindness and generosity they have found among Port Aransans. Lu, Hai and Xing came here with some clothes in a few suitcases and not much else. Folks in Port Aransas have given them dishes, bedding, additional clothing and other living necessities.

"The island people are wonderful," Lu said. "We love here."

Hai is doing volunteer work at the Port Aransas Computer Center, and Lu is volunteering at the Food Pantry.

"So many people help us, we want to do something to return," Hai said.

The Rev. Richard Safford, pastor at Community Presbyterian Church, has gotten to know Lu, since she volunteers at the Food Pantry, which is housed by Safford's church.

"When you see her on a day-today basis, she is always bright and cheery and just easy going," Safford said. "You don't really get a hint of what has been going on in her life. It's only when she sits down, generally in private, to really talk about that history that you see how deeply it has affected her.

"Here is a person with a lot on her own plate," Safford said, "a lot of emotional issues coming from her experiences in China, a lot of fear of what may happen. And yet, she is working to help folks in this community, in a foreign country to her, who are in need of help. And that is consistent with the doctrines and principles of Falun Gong."

In their efforts to seek asylum, Lu and Hai have filed paperwork with immigration authorities and hired a lawyer. The couple doesn't know when a decision will come in their case.

They also don't know what the odds are that they will be granted asylum. But Lu said she has a good feeling about it.

"I know the history of the United States," Lu said. "Because of the persecution of religion, people came here. So I think we are the same."

About 10 Port Aransans are among those who have written letters to immigration officials in support of asylum for Hai, Lu and Xing.

Through Safford, Hai and Lu approached the South Jetty, intent on telling their story, so it could be published for everyone to read.

In interviews with the South Jetty, Hai and Lu said they feel a responsibility to speak out, to let the world know about the terror and injustices that they and many others in China have faced. Hai and Lu hope they can make a difference. They hope that the Communist Party eventually will fall and be replaced by a Democratic government.

They do have fears that the Chinese government will learn that they have spoken publicly about the repression they have suffered. They do fear what Chinese authorities might do to them if they end up having to go back to China.

All articles in the print version of the South Jetty are published on the newspaper 's Web site. That means this article could be seen by Communist Party officials in China. Given the intense scrutiny and harassment that Chinese government officials have imposed on Falun Gong practitioners, it's not unreasonable to assume that Communist Party officials might learn of the criticisms Lu and Hai have expressed in a community weekly newspaper in a small island town on the other side of the world.

If the couple is denied asylum, and they return to China, and if Chinese officials learn that they have denounced the Communist government and continued to praise Falun Gong, Hai and Lu certainly will be arrested the minute they get off the plane in China, Lu said.

What will happen next?

"They will persecute, torture, maybe even kill us," Lu said. "More than 3,000 Falun Gong people have been killed already by Chinese government."

Despite her fears, Lu feels driven to speak out.

"I think I would not be a human being if I did not do something," Lu said, her voice quaking with emotion. "I have cried so many times when I think about the Falun Gong."