TAIPEI, Taiwan—Taiwanese Falun Gong practitioner Ms. Shao Yuhua and her daughter, naturalized citizens of Taiwan, were arrested by China’s State Security Bureau (SSB) in Nanyang City, Hebei Province on July 31. They were visiting Yuhua’s sister at the time.
The Bureau ransacked her sister’s home and confiscated Shao Yuhua’s money, passport and luggage. SSB agents also arrested Yuhua’s sister, Shao Yuxiu. Though the sister was released the next day, on August 1, she was unable to talk to family members from Taiwan for fear her telephone was being monitored.
Chiu Yi, a member of Taiwan’s Nationalist Party, condemned the arrest. “This is another instance of the communist Party arresting people as they please for unclear reasons,” he said to New Tang Dynasty Television. “Yang Yi [head of Beijing’s Taiwan Affairs Office] has always been publicizing freedom of the press and human rights, he should come out and make a statement on this.”
At a press conference held by the Taiwanese Falun Dafa Association on August 1, Theresa Chu, Executive Director of the Asian branch of the Human Rights Law Foundation, urged Chinese authorities to comply with the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) between Taiwan and China.
“Taiwan is entitled to follow the human rights standards of a free society to investigate or assist in the investigation of China’s unlawful arrests of prisoners of conscience,” she said. “I expect our government will demand its counterpart in China to start an internal investigation on the unlawful arrest made by China’s State Security Bureau.”
Professor Chang Ching-Hsi, Chairman of Taiwan’s Falun Dafa Association, went to the hotel where Yang Yi was staying after the press conference, attempting to deliver their statement in person. Yang ignored Chang’s attempt and questions from Epoch Times reporters, hurrying to the elevator of the hotel. Security guards manhandled a cameraman from a local Taiwanese TV station, covering the camera with cloth and demanding the photographer stop rolling.
Ming Chu-Cheng, Professor of Politics at the Taiwan National University said in a phone interview with The Epoch Times that this wasn’t the first time the Chinese authorities have kidnapped a Taiwanese citizen: “But because the Chinese communist regime is different from normal democratic countries, trying to get people released is always difficult.”
Chu, the human rights lawyer, sees the arrest of a Taiwanese citizen, and the search and confiscation of their personal property, to be a litmus test for the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) signed between Taiwan and China on April 26.
Read the original Chinese article.
