Pressing for Husband's Release

Nora Boustany

When Yang Jianli, a Chinese American scholar and democracy activist, went to China on April 18 last year, he thought he would stay for 10 days. Thirteen months later, Yang is in a Chinese prison.

Traveling on a friend's passport because he had been denied a passport and visa several times, Yang set out from Boston, telling his wife, Christina Fu: "Don't try to stop me."

"I know I could not have stopped him," Fu said in an interview here last week.

For a few days, he called Fu every day to reassure her. Then, on April 26, 2002, when Yang was due to fly from Kunming to a northeastern province to meet with factory workers protesting layoffs, a caller told Fu, "Your husband got in trouble at the airport."

Since then, Fu has been seeking the help of the State Department, Congress and the White House to secure her husband's release.

"Since there is so much attention right now and President Bush is going to meet Chinese President Hu Jintao on Friday, May 30, in Russia, the Chinese authorities are not likely to harm him physically," Fu said. "But mentally, we don't know. Maybe they do not let him sleep, shining strong lights on him for 24 hours in solitary confinement, which is what other prisoners have told me."

As Fu spoke, her children, Anita, 10, and Aaron, 7, winced. "I know my husband is strong," she said, smiling reassuringly to her children.

Since being detained, Yang has not been permitted any visits by his brother or a lawyer who was hired in February, Fu said. Fu flew to Beijing a year ago, but authorities refused to allow her entry, putting her on the next plane to the United States.

"We feel the Chinese want to use him as a bargaining chip or to trade him for something big," she said, noting that a number of senior U.S. officials and Harvard faculty members have written letters on his behalf.

Last Wednesday, House Resolution 199 called on China to release Yang unconditionally and immediately and called on President Bush to continue working on his behalf.

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Source: "The Washington Post".