November 29, 2002 Friday Final Edition

SOURCE: Southam Newspapers

DATELINE: OTTAWA

OTTAWA - A Chinese woman who says she was tortured and beaten for practicing Falun Gong thanked Canada Thursday for rescuing her from certain deportation back to China and more brutal treatment at the hands of Chinese officials attempting to suppress the movement.

Immigration Minister Elinor Caplan issued a special visa earlier this month allowing Yuzhi Wang entry to Canada from the United Arab Emirates, where she had been arrested by local police after leaving China to avoid further persecution.

"My life was saved by Canada's help," Wang, 46, told reporters through an interpreter. The Chinese government has denied claims by Falun Gong practitioners of detention and torture at the hands of state police, but the government openly suppresses practice of Falun Gong, a combination of meditative exercise [...]

The movement [...] says thousands of practitioners in China have been imprisoned or sent to labor camps, with several hundred being killed.

Wang, who was a wealthy businesswoman importing office equipment to China and has a son in Vancouver, said she began practicing Falun Gong in 1998 and has been detained three times for her beliefs.

Her last detention was in July 2001, Wang said. Police arrested her while she was withdrawing money from a bank, then froze her bank accounts, which contained $200,000 US. Wang said police confiscated $50,000.

Eventually, she was transferred to the Wanjia forced labor camp, where other Falun Gong practitioners were being held. Wang said guards used torture -- including sleep deprivation, whippings, beatings, electric shocks, shackles and forcing women to remain in cells with violent male criminals -- while attempting to force the prisoners to abandon Falun Gong [...]

Wang said she was released from the camp when it appeared she might die.

When her health returned, she went to the Emirates to avoid further persecution and to visit relatives.

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