Yaning Liu has some cool black and white photos her father took in China online, including this of her and her mother, Shuying Li.
Hate to split hairs, but I did prefer my original lede before it was edited for Sunday's story about Yaning's efforts to bring attention to her 64-year-old mother's extra-judicial detention in a labor re-education camp. Here's a "remix" of the story that appeared in the paper, the one I hurriedly filed Friday evening. Would have liked a little from both columns ...
By Kenneth Todd Ruiz
Staff Writer
]PASADENA — Standing quietly at the edge of international debate over China’s suitability as Olympic host, Yaning Liu holds a simple sign: “Help save my mom.”
When objections to China’s rights record focused locally on a Beijing 2008 entry in next year’s Rose Parade, the deeply introverted Baldwin Park resident seized the opportunity to make her own personal plea one year after police forced her mother into a “labor re-education” camp.
“I’m nobody,” she said in a recent interview. “After my mother was arrested, I wrote to the newspaper and nobody replied.”
One year ago Saturday, 6,000 miles away in Beijing, three police entered the home of Liu’s parents, both retired school teachers, and arrested her mother after finding Falun Gong literature, she said.
China banned Falun Gong in 1999, reportedly after thousands of its adherants held a silent protest around several government buildings.
The police didn’t say where they were taking Li. More than a month passed before her father received notice she’d been sentenced to 2 1/2 years in a labor re-education camp.
No due process, no trial, no evidence.
It’s impossible to independently verify details of Liu’s account. Calls and e-mails sent to the Political & Press Section of the Chinese Consulate in Los Angeles were not returned.
Liu hopes media scrutiny and public pressure will help secure her mother’s release, and if anyone calls her an opportunist along the way, she said she can live with that.
Held today inside Beijing Women's Labor Camp, Li is one of about 250,000 Chinese held under administrative detention, according to a rough estimage by Amnesty International.
“They are not charging these people, they are not giving them a trial. All of this is in the hands of local police, who can do whatever they want,” said Suzanne Wright, an Amnesty International specialist on Chinese affairs.
And they are commonly tortured, she added.
Instead of improving how it treats its citizens, media reports indicate such detentions by the Chinese government are increasing to cleanse the streets of dissent before the international press corps arrive next year.
“Chinese authorities in Beijing have said they want to possibly extend the use of re-education through labor to clean up Beijing before the Olympics,” Wright said. “They’re using the Olympics as an excuse to continue using an illegal form of detention.”
It wasn’t Li’s first arrest. She was sentenced to three years in prison for practicing Falun Gong in 2000.
Alhambra resident Jie Li was 23 when she was sentenced alongside Li, she said.
She wouldn’t have gotten by inside, she said, without the “very warm-hearted” woman’s help.
“She helped others too, even criminals under the age of 18,” Li said. “She help teach them, because she’s a teacher. She teached them some math and so on.”
Both were moved to the Xicheng Detention Facility located in Pasadena’s sister city in June 2006, she said.
It’s that relationship Liu has asked Mayor Bill Bogaard to leverage, given Beijing’s interest in using the Rose Parade to kick off its Olympic celebrations.
Chinese officials have already shown concern about the impact of negative press from Liu on their Olympic spotlight.
As this story was being prepared Thursday, Liu said her 69-year-old father, still awaiting his wife’s return in Beijing, had called with disturbing news.
Four government officials had paid him a visit.
“They asked my father to talk to me, and try to persuade me from not talking to the press and interrupting their Olympic celebration,” she said.
For weeks, Liu had asked Mayor Bill Bogaard to use his relationship with officials in Xicheng to urge for her release.
Responding by e-mail, he declined last month.
“I want you to know that I understand fully your concern and desire for help, from any and every source, in attaining your Mother's release,” Bogaard wrote. “This must be a very difficult time for you and for all of the members of your family.”
Speaking Friday, Bogaard said granting her request would be unlikely to have an impact and would open the gates to similar requests that would “discredit” his role as mayor.
“I’m elected for local affairs, and if I get into the business of pleading on behalf of every deserving person inthe San Gabriel Valley, I am confident it will discredit my role as mayor of Pasadena,” he said, adding he’s resolved to focus solely on domestic matters, he said.
Bogaard was instrumental in bringing the float to the parade. Visiting Beijing several years ago as part of the sister city program, he committed Pasadena’s aid to that effort without seeking consensus from the City Council.
That crossed the line into advocating for Chinese interests, Liu said.
“It’s hypocritical,” she said. “When he invited the float, he must have known what was happening in China. But now, even after everything he’s heard, he seems to be abandoning his conscience. It’s no excuse to say there’s too many lives to be saved.”
Bogaard said he wouldn’t revisit his decision but reserved the right to make more discrete inquiries if he decided it were appropriate.
Liu has created a Web site about her mother at http://helpsavemymom.googlepages.com.
[TAG1]todd.ruiz@sgvn.com
(626) 578-6300, Ext. 4444
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