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Escape to the United States
Tian Lu's Grandmother. Tian Lu believes her death was precipitated by worry over the arrest of her and her husband. (Courtesy of Tian Lu)
Lu Lu had exhausted the meager possibilities open to her in China for helping her husband. On Dec. 24, with the help of family and friends, she managed to leave China for Singapore. After studying English for six months in Singapore, she made it to the United States.
Getting out of a China for a Falun Gong practitioner is not easy. Of the tens of millions targeted in the persecution, roughly 1,000 have successfully obtained asylum.
Mr. Shizhong Chen is the director of the Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group. “There are now over 1,000 Falun Gong practitioners who have escaped China and receive refugee protection in different countries,” Chen said. “They testify how difficult it was for them to escape China and how they were extremely lucky to get out alive.”
Lu Lu had strong reasons for getting out. The police, on one of their visits to her home, told Lu Lu that the 610 Office, the office whose sole function is persecuting Falun Gong, had plans to send her to a Labor Camp for 3 years.
She fled for safety, but she also saw an opportunity in leaving China.
“I wanted to rescue my husband and our lawyer, and I wanted a free life,” she said. “I also wanted the chance to tell the Chinese people what had happened. I want the Chinese people to know the truth about what the CCP is doing.”
In the United States, Lu Lu has started a blog (http://tianlu.blog.epochtimes.com/) in Chinese and English, has collected signatures on a petition, told her story at rallies, and sought out U.S. congressmen, asking them to intervene for her husband and Wang.
In China, Rixu has served two years of his three-year sentence. In prison Rixu has suffered from torture, rape, and brutal interrogations, Lu Lu says. The food is very poor, and he has lost a good deal of weight.
After Rixu’s arrest, the police started visiting Rixu’s ill mother regularly and harassing her. Chen says, “The police often coerce and intimidate practitioners’ family members and then send them to kneel and beg practitioners to renounce their belief.”
Rixu’s mother resisted police demands that she cooperate with them, but on Jan. 8, 2011, she passed away at the age of 53. On Feb. 17, 2011, Rixu’s grandfather also died.
Chen expects the police will now tell Rixu he is responsible for his family members’ deaths, a practice Chen said could not be crueler.
The shattering of Lu Lu and Rixu’s family is not unusual. Chen has documented hundreds of cases, for instance, where both parents were Falun Gong practitioners, were arrested, and killed by torture, leaving their children orphaned.
Lu Lu continues to work to release her husband and the lawyer whose defense of her husband came at such a high price.
