A New York-based musician is appealing for help to find her husband, who vanished as he boarded a flight from China to the US amid fears he was seized for his Falun Gong beliefs.
Mei Xuan (美旋), who fled to the US from China in 2007, said she went on Feb. 18 to Newark Liberty International Airport, flowers in hand, to welcome her husband, Jiang Feng (江峰), who was scheduled to arrive on a flight from Shanghai. He never arrived and phone calls went unanswered.
Mei said she confirmed that the 42-year-old Jiang had checked in to the Continental Airlines flight and concluded that he disappeared between security and the boarding gate.
“I’m very, very worried for him,” Mei said on a recent visit to Washington, where she was seeking help from lawmakers. “Because we both practice Falun Gong, we have experienced this before and know they can just take you away. I thought we could finally be together. We want to have a baby.”
Mei plays the erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument, in the Shen Yun ensemble, which incorporates Falun Gong themes. The troupe was recently in the spotlight when members said they were denied visas to perform in Hong Kong.
China outlawed Falun Gong — a spiritual movement loosely based on Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian philosophies — in 1999 following a silent mass gathering in Beijing by its members. China denounces the group as an “evil cult.”
The New York-based Falun Dafa Information Center said it had information that Jiang was taken to his native Anhui Province and that agents are trying to force him to renounce his beliefs.
Mei, who uses an alias for security reasons, said she and her husband suffered abuse in lengthy previous spells in detention.
In one incident, Mei said plain-clothes police shoved her into a car as she waited on the street for a taxi. She said she was then handcuffed to a chair and deprived of sleep for two-and-a-half months.
“The only reason was because I practice Falun Gong,” she said.
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