Victim:

Xu Zhiwei, male, Ph.D., a Research Scientist at Motorola Labs, resident of Schaumburg, Illinois

Location:

Chinese Consulate, Chicago, U.S.A.

Description:

Mr. Xu Zhiwei started practicing Falun Gong in 1997. On April 19, 2002, he applied for his passport renewal at the Chinese Consulate in Chicago, but his application was rejected without any explanation. On April 22, 2002, Consul Ye Zhen called him at home to verify whether he had once been the local Falun Gong contact person in Florida where he had studied as a graduate student.

On May 21, 2002, Mr. Xu’s family along with another Falun Gong practitioner, whose passport renewal was also rejected, went to the consulate to ask why their applications had been rejected, hoping that their passports would be renewed. However, nobody from the consulate came to meet them.

Without a valid passport, Mr. Xu has had difficulty keeping his visa in the U.S.