Despite Persecution in China, Student Denied Asylum

DETERMINED: Falun Gong practitioner Han Wei hands out flyers near the Washington monument in Washington DC on July 18. Han, a graduate student, hopes to stay in the United States and finish her education. (The Epoch Times)

Wei Han knew something was wrong as the van with her uncle and several strangers headed further out from Beijing in September, 2003. Forty minutes into the drive, Han asked her uncle why they had not reached the restaurant.

“The restaurant” was an unmarked, barred-door, state-run brainwashing center.  Han said her family and relatives had betrayed her, hoping she would be allowed back to school if she gave up Falun Gong in the brainwashing center. 

Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual practice banned in China in 1999.

Han spent four months in custody, once moving from one facility to another. When Chinese New Year arrived, the staff of the center all wanted to take the traditional long holiday and she was released.

Her school troubles began when someone told the university administration that she practiced Falun Gong, in April 2003. 

Han, a slight, soft spoken woman from rural Hebei Province, was a good student at Tsinghua University, sometimes called the MIT of China. Han said, “They try to decide which students will be recommended to the graduate school in October 2004.  My score was enough to get recommended.  [My department’s Chinese Communist Party Deputy Secretary] told me I was not qualified for the political investigation…Our department has four or five research centers but none dared to accept me.”

In 2005, she came to Clemson University in South Carolina to work towards a Ph.D in Mechanical Engineering. After a year in the United States on a student visa, Han applied for political asylum.

A lawyer would cost $2,000, she said, and she felt she could not afford that; she did not want to ask her fellow Falun Gong practitioners for money. She went to her interview with no interpreter and no legal advice.

“I thought I could do it myself.”  The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services interviewed Han in February 2007. 

She said “there were misunderstandings,” and said the official who interviewed her told her he thought “you are not genuine.” Her request for political asylum was denied on June 18, 2008.

Though Han’s request for asylum was denied, she plans to try again. Han traveled to Washington, DC for the third time with Atlanta Falun Gong practitioners on July 16-19. Events there marked the ninth anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party banning Falun Gong in China.  The group has been harshly persecuted for nine years.  Han handed out flyers before and during the parade calling for an end to the persecution in her homeland.