In a town hall meeting on Sunday, Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) told New York residents he would help to rescue a family member undergoing brutal persecution in China.
Maloney responded to constituents’ questions and spoke of his view of the persecution of Chinese people for their religious beliefs.
On July 18, at Myron Urbanski Memorial Park for another #SpeakWithSean Town Hall in the Park, New York resident Wang Jin sought help from Malony on behalf of her husband who is detained in Yaojia Detention Center, Dalian city, in northeast China.
Wang’s husband, Ren Haifei, is a Falun Gong practitioner who lives in Dalian.
On June 26, 2020, the CCP police broke into his home and arrested him without an arrest warrant. Wang explained that Ren suffered from both heart and kidney failure after being badly beaten by the police. He survived after 19 days of hospitalization. But he was kept at the detention center. On July 29, Ren will be subject to a trial.
Also present was Xu Lili, another Falun Gong practitioner. She explained that this was not the first time that Ren was arrested. In 2001, Ren was illegally arrested and sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. During that time he was brutally tortured and by the time he was released in 2008, his family could barely recognize him.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a mind and body cultivation that’s welcomed by hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s rooted in the 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture. However, just like any spiritual belief or religion in China, Falun Gong has been suppressed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999.
According to incomplete statistics from Minghui.org, from July 20, 1999, to July 2021, the CCP persecuted 4,677 Falun Gong practitioners to death (where the names and identities are known). Heilongjiang Province has recorded the most deaths from the persecution, followed by Liaoning Province, where Ren is being held.
Maloney expressed his awareness of the persecution and said he’s glad to help.
“People should know that this issue of persecution of the Falun Gong in China is a real one,” he said. “Millions of Chinese citizens are in concentration camp-style facilities because of their religious beliefs.”
He noted that for 40 years, a bipartisan consensus on bringing China into the world economy and making it easier for China to succeed in the world has shown to be a big failure, “We are having a big change of thought on China in the United States government.”
He said that it’s not that the United States wants a cold war with China, “but if we have one, the United States of America is going to win.”
He also revealed that as a member of the intelligence committee, China actually denied his visa when he was trying to visit the Embassy in Beijing, “They did so because I insisted on going to Taiwan.”
Maloney stressed that there’s a strong bipartisan agreement in the United States to focus on the geopolitical challenges China presents, and “a big part is making sure that we stand for human rights, for Falun Gong and for others.”
