Chinese human rights lawyer Wang Yu was awarded the International Women of Courage Award by the U.S. Department of State in March, but her son Bao Zhuoxuan, who has endured repression by Chinese security forces, was sent to an immigration detention center upon entering the U.S. last year and has now been paroled pending a court appearance. Bao Zhuoxuan told the station that he is confident that he will eventually be granted asylum in the U.S. and that he strongly supports his Parents‘ cause to defend human rights and has no regrets even if his flesh and blood are separated.
According to the Los Angeles Times, Pao was arrested by customs at Los Angeles Airport and sent to the Adelanto Immigration Detention Center in March last year when he arrived in the United States on a tourist visa. The conditions there reminded him of his Nightmares and traumatic incarceration in China, but were better than Chinese prisons: good Food, no beatings, handcuffs or forced labor, occasional outings, and many Chinese compatriots.
The station contacted Bao Zhuoxuan, who said he clarified at the Time that he was visiting a friend, but the other side thought he had strong immigration tendencies and might have to be deported to China. He decided to file for political asylum, “I was very, very shocked! If I am to be deported back to China, it would be better to apply for political asylum. All my parents’ efforts to compromise with the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for my study abroad have been wiped out; I will also definitely be persecuted again by the Chinese Communist Party and under its control twenty-four hours a day.”
“Some people think that my name may be on the CCP’s wanted list; personally, I think it may not be too complicated. I entered the country with a full passport, information ……” Bao Zhuoxuan said.
It seems highly ironic that he is so fearful of the persecution he faces if he is returned to China, which is obvious,” said Times Wang, son of Chinese pro-democracy pioneer Wang Bingzhang and founder of North River Law Firm. The Chinese government is recklessly using human lives as bargaining chips and is not ashamed to do so, including its own citizens.”
Deportation to China would be unthinkable, U.S. National Security Council intervenes
Fu Xiqiu, founder of the Texas-based Christian rights group China Aid Association, remembers the unusually dark month Bao Zhuoxuan spent in Adelanto, where his desperate cries were heard every day.
Fu Xiqiu approached the Department of Homeland Security, the Under Secretary of State and the Assistant Secretary of State, many of whom did their best and made efforts beyond their official positions, but failed to change the outcome.
After his mediation, Robert O’Brien, a former adviser to the National Security Council, finally intervened and Bao Zhuoxuan was released on parole after a month in prison, ushering in “belated justice.
“This immigration system, how come it’s harder than shaking a mountain? Law enforcement is cold, and some officials are so arrogant that they feel they are above the law. I used all my energy and political capital. I was particularly livid, (told the NSC) it would become a joke and a big scandal around the world. No U.S. law enforcement official can threaten to kick a refugee back to the country he is from when he first makes his claim. That would be a violation not only of the U.S. Refugee Act, but of the Geneva Convention.” Fu Xiqiu recalled.
Bao Zhuoxuan’s first court appearance, originally scheduled for this January, was postponed to the summer, or even later, because of the Epidemic.
“The first meet-and-greet court will call you over and announce the court rules. After that, there may be two or three court sessions before you are given an answer as to whether you are granted asylum. I currently have my freedom. It’s just that there is no status, something like black status.” His passport has been confiscated, making it difficult to get a bank account, driver’s license or rent an apartment, and he has enrolled in a community college with the help of friends.
Fu Xiqiu believes that Bao Zhuoxuan get asylum no suspense, only the time can not be determined, “the U.S. State Department senior officials wrote a letter to the immigration bureau because of political views he returned to the country there is a credible fear (well-founded fear), riveted on the nail. Factually and procedurally I don’t think there will be a problem.”
Zheng Cunzhu, a leader of the 1989 pro-democracy movement who has helped many Hong Kong people obtain political asylum, told the station that all those who apply for asylum at the airport are sent to an immigration detention center and have to wait 2-3 years after being released on bail before they can go to court for approval.
“In the beginning, if you don’t get out on bail, you can usually go to court in a few months. It’s faster to go to court in a detention center. The fugitive from Hong Kong we just rescued went into the detention center on Feb. 10 and was scheduled to go to court on April 14. It was only two months before and after.”
Because the case is still in progress, the two lawyers who previously represented Bao Zhuoxuan said it was inconvenient to comment. As of press time, the U.S. Department of State and ICE have not yet responded to our inquiries.
The road to freedom is endlessly bumpy
In 2008, after Wang Yu was framed and released from prison, she was determined to switch from business lawyering to human rights litigation. From the Fan Mugen case, the Cao Shunli case, the Yin Xuan case, the Ilhamu-Touh proposal, to the Falun Gong faith case. Little by little, the young Bao Zhuoxuan learned by ear and tried to understand her mother’s choices.
“My parents never instilled in me the need to oppose the CCP, but rather told me the stories of these cases. For example, I sympathized with the parties who were demolished or beaten up for petitioning. This is very biased from what the CCP Education instilled in me and what the news papers reported. There are people who are rich and powerful, but there are frozen bones on the road. Those we don’t know about are suffering.”
In 2015, the “709 arrests” of human rights lawyers began with Wang Yu’s Family. On the night of July 9, more than a dozen men suddenly opened Wang Yu’s Home with a power drill, pushed her down, dragged her downstairs, and handcuffed her with a black hood. Wang Yu’s husband, Longjun Bao, who was at the airport preparing to send his son to study in Australia, was also surrounded by police and sent to jail. Bao Zhuoxuan, who weighs less than 100 pounds, was tortured by being held in a hotel and repeatedly wrestled to the floor by his detainees.
On October 2, 2015, he planned to travel from Inner Mongolia to the United States after passing through Myanmar with the assistance of rights activists Tang Zhishun and Xing Qingxian, but was unfortunately captured on the streets of Myanmar by Chinese plainclothes police. The police officers beat him severely with sticks and slapped him across the border, saying, “Tell me everything and sign, or else they will beat you on your body this time and on your head next time, and no one will care if you are killed!” Bao Zhuoxuan was then sent back to his home, where he was under 24-hour surveillance by cameras and state security.
Zhou Fenglock, founder of the U.S.-based human rights organization Humane China, was in Thailand waiting to pick up Bao Zhuoxuan, saying, “The child is innocent, so why did he have to go through so much trouble to escape? This country is a hell for people with a conscience. Tang Zhishun and Xing Qingxian paid a great price and still cannot leave the country.”
As the first lawyer arrested in “709,” Wang Yu was tortured in the Tianjin Detention Center and went into shock after five days and nights without sleep. But she never gave in until the police threatened her with a photo of Bao Zhuoxuan. As a mother, Wang Yu eventually agreed to a TV confession and was released on bail in August 2016.
“My parents loved me too much, and the CCP used me as a threat, very nasty and very vicious. I was surprised to see her after two years, I (would have) not even known I would have to wait years.”
The two of them hugged each other and burst into tears.
Bao Zhuoxuan: Mom and Dad for the oppressed to fight for dignity, flesh and bone separation also do not regret
In early 2018, Wang Yu used interviews with foreign media and public protests as leverage to get permission for Bao Zhuoxuan to study in Australia. Under the blue sky and white clouds of Australia, Bao Zhuoxuan breathed the air of the free world for the first time, but he never came out of fear.
The “pinkies” at Trinity College, where he studied, were chattering and the eyes of the Chinese Communist Party seemed to be everywhere, and he was careful to hide his past. One day, his host family received a phone call from an unknown person asking for Bao Zhuoxuan’s personal information and demanding access to his computer. Feeling no longer safe, Bao Zhuoxuan decided to go to the United States.
Our reporter called Wang Yu that day, but was unable to get through. Speaking to the Los Angeles Times about her son, Wang Yu said, “He is tall and thin and soft-spoken, but very stubborn and assertive. She believes Bao Zhuoxuan will be granted asylum in the United States, “which has a more complete and well-functioning legal system.”
But she doesn’t know the full picture of her son’s Life. Is he alone? Is there someone he can turn to when he feels scared? How she wishes she could leave China and watch over him again, protect him, just like she did when she was a child, but he is so far out of reach that “sometimes my heart hurts. He is my only son.”
“Bao Zhuoxuan he has been suffering from the age of 15 or 16, ‘ripened’ by the ordeal of the Chinese Communist Party. And Gao Zhisheng, Jiang Tianyong, Liu Xianbin, and Peng Ming’s daughter, all of whom can’t see their father. It is a systemic cruelty and disaster, an evil spirit with no bottom line of human decency.” Pastor Fu Xiqiu lamented that the evil spirit of the Chinese Communist Party has brewed untold numbers of separations of flesh and bone until heaven and earth are separated.
Asked how he should make sense of all that has happened in the past six years, Bao Zhuoxuan confessed that the complexity, multidimensionality, evil and vileness of the CCP is beyond the dimension of human language, and that he needed a long period of examination and contemplation, and that he was unwilling to merely present his complaint as a victim, which would be an underestimation and blasphemy of human suffering.
The root cause of the endless suffering of Wang Yu’s family is still creating new disasters in Xinjiang, Hong Kong, Tibet and the South China Sea …… The good news is that the international community is gradually waking up.
As for his small family, his increasingly frustrated, but at any time may be “disappeared” again mom and dad, in the vortex of history, what role will play?
“They did not do it for themselves, but for the sake of giving the suffering and persecuted people the dignity they deserve, which is a glorious cause. So if I always think about myself, is it too selfish?”
Bao Zhuoxuan said confusedly but firmly that this is a path he has walked so lonely that he does not know when he will embrace his mother again, it could be very near or very far. The Chinese Communist Party can manipulate everything in China, including the minds and souls of people.
“I don’t even know if our efforts, futile or not, can do even a little damage to it; let the nation have even a little reflection; let the international community recognize the human rights situation in China and the bad behavior of the CCP …… The CCP is a difficult tumor, a cancer, and with human technology, can it be eradicated? I’m not sure. But the point is — we’re doing it.”
Recent Comments