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FREEDOM NOW
P.O. Box 30126 · Bethesda, Maryland 20824-0126 · (301) 279-9536 (ph) · (301) 718-3631 (f) · www.freedom-now.org
MEDIA ADVISORY
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 7, 2003 | Contact: Susan Bennett, Jill Lewis
(703) 518-5170 |
SUPPORTERS MARK ONE-YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF CHINESE DISSIDENT
YANG JIANLI’S IMPRISONMENT WITH CANDLELIGHT VIGIL
What: Community activists and supporters will gather for a candlelight vigil to pay tribute to Dr. Yang Jianli, a Chinese dissident and leader of the pro-democracy movement from Brookline, Mass., who has been held incommunicado in a Chinese prison since April 2002. The vigil is one of many that will be held around the country that day. Participants will also have the opportunity to sign a letter to Chinese President Hu Jintao and find out what they can do to help bring Dr. Yang home to his family.
When: Thursday, April 24, 2003, 5:30-8 p.m.
Where: Park adjacent to the Chinese Embassy
2300 Connecticut Ave. NW
(intersection of Connecticut Ave. and Kalorama Rd.)
Washington, DC
Who: Christina Fu, Dr. Yang’s wife
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.)
Background: For the past year, Dr. Yang, a legal permanent resident of the United States, has been held incommunicado in a Chinese prison after entering the country to lend support to workers and research labor unrest and its impact on Chinese economic development. He has not spoken with a lawyer or his wife, Christina Fu, and two young children, Anita and Aaron, since he was taken into police custody in an airport in Kunming, China on April 26, 2002. While Chinese procedural law requires that the family or employer of a person detained be notified within 24 hours of detention, the Chinese government has yet to present Dr. Yang’s family or employers with a formal detention notice, and to date no official charges have been filed against him. According to an analysis completed by the staff of the Harvard Law School, the Chinese government has also violated its own law both through the prolonged detention as well as by denying access to an attorney or visits by family members.
Dr. Yang is an alumnus of the University of California at Berkeley and Harvard University, and he is the president of the Foundation for China in the 21st Century, an organization dedicated to promoting the establishment of a democratic China. A participant in the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989, he has been put on a Chinese blacklist of dissidents, and the Chinese government has repeatedly refused to renew his passport.
For more information about Dr. Yang, please go to www.freedom-now.org or www.yangjianli.com.
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