January 18, 2001

Prime Minister Jean Chretien should use his upcoming Team Canada trade mission to Beijing to demand that China "stop the persecution of Falun Gong and release all imprisoned practitioners," freed Canadian citizen KunLun Zhang urged yesterday.

Less than a week after his surprise release from a Chinese labour camp and prompt return to Canada. Mr. Zhang spoke yesterday of the electroshock torture he endured after being arrested last July in China for practising the banned exercises of Falun Gong in a public park.

And he vowed - despite a Chinese government claim that Mr. Zhang was released only after promising to "distance himself" from Falun Gong - that "nothing can shake" his passion for the meditation practice outlawed by China in 1999.

Mr. Zhang said Chinese officials finally "tried to find a way to release me" when his case became an international incident and a growing source of friction between Canada and China prior to the February trade trip.

"I'm very grateful to all the Canadian people," he said, referring to the campaign for his release mounted by Ottawa-area Falun Gong practitioners, including his daughter LingDi of Ottawa, and backed by several MPs and media outlets.

At the home in Kanata where Mr. Zhang is staying, the 60-year-old sculptor spoke Mandarin while answering questions via his host and translator Xun Li, a national co-ordinator for Falun Gong.

A prominent sculptor and art professor in his native country, Mr. Zhang said he came to Canada in 1989 "to study western arts" in Montreal. An exhibition of his work was held at a gallery there and he recalls completing a sculpture of an "Eastern God" for a Vietnamese temple.

But in 1996, he says, the death of his ailing mother-in-law's caregiver forced his hasty return to the Chinese city of Jinan. With no time to apply for a visa, he used his Chinese passport to travel to his homeland. It was a decision that later allowed Chinese officials to disregard Mr. Zhang's Canadian citizenship when he ran afoul of the country's ban against Falun Gong.

Mr. Zhang says he is concerned about the safety of his wife and mother-in-law, who remain in China, but adds that he is determined to use his freedom to support other victims of persecution. "I want to reveal the truth (about the Falun Gong crackdown) to the public. In China, it is very hard to get the message out."

Mr. Zhang says tens of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners continue to face imprisonment and torture. After his own arrest, he said, Chinese police "used electric batons to torture me around my body." Later, apparently as a result of Canadian media coverage of his plight, the effort to "re-educate" him turned to "mental torture."

"They isolate you and you have no contract with people outside," he said. "I never knew there were people appealing for me back in Canada."

Inside the prison, he said, teams of guards worked in round-the-clock shifts to "continue the brainwashing."