Community rallies behind Chinese prisoner's family Brock Parker

April 30, 2003

One year after her husband Yang Jianli was taken prisoner in China, Christina Fu is drawing on community support to help get him back. Parents from the Driscoll and Pierce schools lend a hand by picking up Fu's children from school every afternoon and then baby-sit them while she works late doing research at Harvard Medical School. Members of her church at All Saints Parish on Beacon Street have started a support group for her and baby-sit the children on weekends when Fu needs to go out of town. Last Friday, members from several local churches and synagogues came together to hold a vigil at All Saints Parish to show support for Fu and her son Aaron, who is in the second grade at the Driscoll School and her daughter Anita, who is in the fifth grade at the Pierce School. "Some people are helping with childcare, others are writing letters and some people are just taking [Fu's situation] on as a very specific prayer," said Julie Seavy, a pastoral associate at All Saints Parish. "It is just mostly making sure her needs are being met." On the surface, the amount of community support for Fu might seem like a luxury. But looking at the amount of time Fu spends fighting to get her husband back it becomes obvious that she needs it just to survive.

Rev. Leslie Sterling holds a candle as she welcomed everyone to the Friday evening vigil at All Saints Parish for Yang Jianli, who has been held captive for more than a year in China. To her right is Christina Fu, Jianli's wife, who is fighting for his return. - PHOTO BY DAVE GORDON

Fu spends almost every spare moment calling lawyers, congressmen, the United States State Department- anyone who she thinks can help end the year she's gone without hearing Jianli's voice or knowing where he's being held prisoner.

The community support she has received, Fu said, gives her valuable time.

"It is really the help I need so I can forget about having to feed my kids and taking them to the park," Fu said Monday. "Of course I want to do those things, but if I can have that time I can write one more letter or make one more phone call. I just really appreciate it."

Fu and the community efforts have started to make some progress. Fu said she has finally succeeded in hiring a lawyer in China to take her husband's case.

Hiring a lawyer is progress, she said, because after her husband was arrested in China last April with an illegal passport she couldn't even find a lawyer in the Communist country that would take the case.

Jianli has long been an activist working for better human rights in China. He is the chairman of the Boston-based Foundation for China and participated in the 1989 protests in Tiananmen Square. It is because of his outspoken promotion of better human rights and democracy in China that Jianli was denied a legal passport back into the country.

Fu said she now may also have a better idea where her husband is being held, a prison called Da Hong Man, or the Big Red Door, detention center in Beijing.

Since they located the prison, Fu said her brother-in-law, who lives in China, has been taking money and clothes to the prison for Jianli.

"But we have no assurance that those things are received by my husband," Fu said.

Back home, Fu has recently gotten a big boost of support from Congressman Barney Frank (D-Massachusetts), who is co-sponsoring a bill in the United States House of Representatives calling for the Chinese government to immediately release Jianli and for President George W. Bush to keep working for Jianli's release.

"Barney Frank is really doing everything," Fu said. "I feel like his efforts are really the most effective."

All of the work being put into her husband's plight has created some optimism for Fu, who said she now expects Jianli to come home. She just doesn't know when.

In the mean time she continues to work.

Last week Fu was in Washington D.C. trying to get more support for her efforts and for a vigil for her husband last Thursday that was held in front of the Chinese Consulate in the Capitol.

Similar ceremonies were held in cities across the country, such as Chicago and Los Angeles.

Seavy said that All Saints Parish planned the local vigil on Friday night for the day Fu returned to Brookline, so that she would feel at home. More than 100 people showed up for the vigil, Seavy said.

"I think it helps to have a community to come home to," Seavy said.

"It is a tremendous help," Fu said. "With all this support, with all this crying out for his release [the Chinese government] hears it."

For more information about local and national efforts to free Jianli, go the Web site set up for the effort: www.supportjianli.org.

Brock Parker can be reached at bparker @cnc.com.

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Source: "Boston Herald".