Chinese human rights activist Guo Feixiong (real name Yang Maodong) was stopped at Shanghai Pudong Airport on Jan. 28 as he was preparing to board a flight to the United States to care for his cancer-stricken wife, Zhang Qing, when he was stopped by border control for “endangering national security. Zhang Qing, who has been diagnosed with cancer that has spread to his liver, told VOA Thursday that Guo’s Family in China and the United States have been searching and calling police for a week, but have not received any information about Guo’s current condition.
Guo Feixiong’s wife, Zhang Qing, wrote to U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet-Heria on Feb. 1. She pleaded with the highest-ranking U.N. official, who specializes in human rights around the world, to focus on the current plight of her family after their first surgery for cancer, and asked the U.N. human rights official, who is also a mother and wife, to call on the Chinese government to respect the civil rights of Yang Maodong (pseudonym Guo Feixiong) and allow him to come to his wife as soon as possible.
Sources told VOA that the letter was forwarded to the Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, which has replied explicitly that it received the letter.
In the letter, Zhang Qing wrote, “I am writing to you from my hospital bed in a rented house in Maryland, U.S., as I am suffering from the first stage of cancer surgery I underwent not long ago.”
The letter mentions that Yang Maodong wrote to the Chinese premier after learning that Zhang Qing was seriously ill, requesting that he be released to visit the United States, and received official permission to quickly apply for a passport. But on the evening of Jan. 28, Yang was barred from leaving the country in Shanghai, China, when he was about to board a flight to the United States on the grounds that he “might endanger national security.
In his letter, Zhang Qing said that Yang then declared an open-ended hunger strike in protest, and soon lost contact with his friends and family and has been missing ever since.
In her letter, Zhang Qing also wrote, “As a patient who is essentially confined to bed rest, I need my husband to care for me; as a mother, I worry that my minor children will not be able to finish college without their father’s support; as a wife, I worry that my husband’s continued hunger strike will lead to his own deteriorating and Life-threatening health.”
In a letter to the U.N. human rights official, Guo Feixiong’s wife said Yang Maodong served a total of 11 years in prison twice for democracy and human rights in China, last released in 2019, and was subjected to threats, beatings, abuse and torture from Chinese officials.
Zhang Qing said she came to the United States to work part-Time and study while raising her two children. She and her husband have been separated since 2006 and have not seen each other again. Their daughter and son haven’t seen their father in 15 years.
Last month, Guo Feixiong himself sent two open letters to top Communist Party officials during his passport application process and on the eve of his departure, in a dramatic reversal of the authorities’ attitude of first releasing and then stopping him.
On the evening of January 28, Guo Feixiong, who had just been issued a Chinese Passport, was barred from leaving Shanghai’s Pudong airport on suspicion of endangering national security, and immediately announced that he would begin an indefinite hunger strike on the spot.
The last-minute ban on the internationally renowned civil scholar and Writer from leaving the country drew widespread public attention.
A number of international human rights organizations, civil society groups, and Chinese intellectuals and citizens at Home and abroad have expressed their concern in various ways, asking the Chinese authorities to respect humanity and human rights, to urgently reach out to Guo Feixiong and his wife in order to save their lives, and not to turn a blind eye to a possible humanitarian tragedy.
Until now, the Chinese government has remained silent about Guo Feixiong’s situation and calls from the outside world.
On Thursday, Guo Feixiong’s wife, Zhang Qing, gave a telephone interview to the Voice of America. She told reporters that the results of a recent review at the hospital were more serious than expected, and that the cancer had spread, making a second surgery impossible as originally planned, and that chemotherapy was the only option.
Zhang Qing believes the Chinese government took the opportunity to retaliate and persecute the family when Guo Feixiong disappeared after being intercepted while she was seriously ill.
The mother of two says her only hope and most needed help now is to get Guo Feixiong to the U.S. for family reunification as soon as possible through appeals and efforts from various sources, including public opinion, the international community and the United Nations, as well as the news media. Below is the audio recording of this interview.
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