The daughter of a Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner who has been detained in China for one month met US Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in Washington on Tuesday in the hope that the US will help secure the release of her father.
Chung Ai (鍾愛) said she hopes the international community and the US can help prevent the Chinese government from prosecuting her father, Bruce Chung (鍾鼎邦), who was reportedly detained because of his involvement with Falun Gong, which is banned in China.
Bruce Chung, a manager at a Hsinchu-based technology firm, went to Jiangxi Province to visit his half-brother on June 15 and was reportedly detained by Chinese police on June 18 to “assist with an investigation into the Falun Gong sect,” according to his wife.
Photo: Huang Liang-chieh, Taipei Times
Xinhua news agency confirmed in a June 26 report that Bruce Chung had been arrested, and said he had been detained for hijacking the signal of a Chinese TV station in 2003 from Taiwan with the help of Chinese nationals.
However, the report did not mention that Bruce Chung allegedly hijacked the signal to broadcast video footage of the Chinese government’s suppression of Falun Gong activists.
Chung Hsiao-ching (鍾曉青), Chung Ai’s aunt, who accompanied her to Washington, said Xinhua’s failure to mention Falun Gong in its report reflected Beijing’s intentional avoidance of the subject.
Chung Ai told reporters in Washington that “if my father did something in Taiwan, he should be investigated by Taiwan’s justice system” and not by Chinese authorities.
In addition, she said the lawyer they hired in China was invited to “drink tea” by Chinese police the same day he was hired.
“Drinking tea” is a euphemism used by Taiwanese businesspeople to refer to being summoned for an interview by Chinese security.
Chung’s lawyer was eventually able to visit his client in person on July 11, Chung Ai said, adding her father was reported to be in a depressed state.
“The longer [Bruce] Chung is detained in China, the more torture he will endure,” Chung Hsiao-ching said, urging the international community to pressure the Chinese government to release him.
The Straits Exchange Foundation said that it has asked the Association for Relations Across the Taiwan Straits to help seek the release of Bruce Chung as soon as possible.
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