On Jan. 30, people from all walks of Life who are concerned about Guo Feixiong’s situation launched a joint campaign through the website chinachange.org, calling on the outside world and the West to pay attention to the situation and to facilitate Guo’s early arrival in the United States to reunite with his wife and care for her. The statement said that Chinese dissident Guo Feixiong is a member of the Chinese government.
The statement says that Chinese dissident Guo Feixiong, who wished to travel to the United States to care for his wife, who had just undergone cancer surgery, was stopped by Chinese authorities at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Jan. 28 and denied exit on the pretext of “endangering national security.
The joint statement points out that Guo Feixiong is a free Chinese citizen, and that the Chinese Communist Party has no reason to prevent him from leaving the country to visit his Family, whether from a legal perspective, a human rights perspective, or a humanitarian perspective. The statement argues that this inhumane behavior by the CCP is yet more evidence that the regime has become increasingly fascist. Guo Feixiong has announced the start of an indefinite hunger strike. The statement calls for attention to this development and calls on Western countries to assist Guo Feixiong’s wish to visit his family in the United States through diplomatic means.
The State Department said Friday (Jan. 29) that the United States is disturbed by reports that Chinese dissident Guo Feixiong has been prevented by Chinese authorities from leaving the country to come to the United States to care for his seriously ill wife, and is closely monitoring the case.
Guo wrote an open letter earlier to Chinese Premier Li Keqiang and Public Security Minister Zhao Kezhi, asking for the return of his passport and release to care for his wife, who is seriously ill. Guo’s wife, Zhang Qing, just had open-heart surgery for colon cancer with liver metastases on Jan. 9 and will soon need chemotherapy for 24 weeks.
After the open letter was sent, Guangzhou State Security asked Guo Feixiong for a diagnosis of Zhang Qing’s condition, and a few days later told him in person that they would allow him to travel to the U.S. to accompany his wife, and that he would be allowed to obtain a private passport. At the same Time, Guo’s sister, Dr. Yang Maoping, flew to the U.S. to care for her sister-in-law, Zhang Qing.
On January 27, Guo was told that although the Guangzhou and Guangdong police had agreed to his travel to the United States, the Ministry of Public Security would not approve it unless Guo reached “some agreement” with a Ministry of Public Security official somewhere in Hubei, the Voice of America reported recently.
Guo Feixiong told VOA on Jan. 27 that the authorities were saying that the agreement was nothing more than an illegal demand that he give up his civil rights to express his political views.
Guo Feixiong sent another open letter to Chinese leaders Xi Jinping, Li Keqiang and Li Zhanshu on Jan. 27 about the critical condition of his wife Zhang Qing’s life and his own anxiety. In the letter, Guo said that chemotherapy “is extremely risky and life-threatening. I must go to the United States immediately and do my best to care for her and help her get through the most dangerous and difficult point in her life.
On Jan. 28, Guo Feixiong was banned from leaving Shanghai’s Pudong airport by authorities on suspicion of endangering national security. He announced on the spot that he would begin an indefinite hunger strike and shortly thereafter lost contact with the outside world.
The last message he sent to a Voice of America reporter on his cell phone before losing contact was, “I would appreciate urgent help from the U.S. government.”
Guo Feixiong, whose real name is Yang Maodong, is one of the pioneers of China’s human rights movement, and was arrested in 2006 for his involvement in the dismissal of village officials in Guangdong’s Taishi village, sentenced to five years in 2007, and released from prison on September 12, 2011. In 2009, Guo’s wife fled China with their two young children to escape persecution by the Chinese Communist Party, and in August 2013, Guo was re-arrested and sentenced to six years in prison for organizing citizen groups in solidarity with Southern Weekend and launching campaigns in several cities to demand China’s recognition of the United Nations Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and was released in 2019.
Guo Feixiong is the recipient of the 2015 Frontline Defenders Award from Frontline Defenders Ireland.
Recent Comments