My name is Yang Chunfang. One Saturday while I was doing the Falun Gong exercises in front of the Chinese Embassy in Washington D.C., my bag with my passport inside was stolen. I was very worried. As a foreigner in the US, a passport is very important. I went to apply for a new one immediately.

After gathering all the required elements for a new passport based on the embassy’s Web site, I went to the Chinese Embassy. At the embassy, a female employee told me I could not apply for a passport that day because I had advertised about my lost passport in the Epoch Times newspaper. Instead she said, “You need to advertise in newspapers such as Qiao Bao.” It is known that Qiao Bao is run by the Chinese government, whose goal is to incite hatred and misunderstanding about Falun Gong. To put an advertisement in Qiao Bao was also expensive.

I felt it was unfair that the Chinese Embassy was making it difficult to apply for a new passport.  Being a student without a passport, however, is inconvenient. As a compromise, I advertised with a newspaper that was not so closely related to the Chinese government. I finally managed to complete the application filing in April of the following year. In the notification about the loss of my passport, I wrote down, "I lost it while I was practicing exercises in front of the Chinese Embassy" The staff at the Chinese Embassy asked me what exercise I was practicing. I said, "The Falun Gong exercises". 

After six months went by, in October 2003, I went to the Chinese Embassy to inquire about the status of my passport. A female staff came out to tell me that it wasn’t ready yet. I asked her why? She said it would take some time for the public security to check it out, and so forth. I asked her whether I could call China to find out what was going on. She evaded my eyes and said awkwardly in a low voice, “Sure.”

I called the Public Security Bureau in China that was in charge of issuing passports. A female staff told me that their record only showed that my passport had expired in July 2002. I told her that I had obtained an extension. She then replied, “If you got it extended with the local Chinese Embassy that means they had already validated the passport and there is no need for them to check with us. Plus, we have never received any inquiry from the Chinese Embassy about a passport replacement for you.”

That night, I began to seriously inquire about how to apply for political asylum in the United States.

The following day, a consular by the surname of Lin called and asked if I could meet with him regarding my passport. My husband and I went there together, but he was not allowed to go in the meeting.

I met with Consular Lin for about an hour. During the meeting, he asked me, “Besides doing the exercises in front of the Chinese Embassy, what other Falun Gong activities have you participated in and what role did you play in these activities?.” I told him, “I refuse to answer these questions. Replacing a passport should not be linked with my personal belief. The Chinese Constitution also states that its citizens have freedom of belief. Besides, the embassy knows very well all the information about overseas Falun Gong activities.” Jiang Zemin has spent a quarter of the GNP every year to persecute Falun Gong. I asked him, “Do you know how my passport got lost?” I told him the story about my cell phone. I also told him that a spokesman for the Chinese Consulate in San Francisco said in a TV interview, when Dr. Charles Lee, a Chinese-American who was arrested when he returned to China, “We have all the names of the overseas Falun Gong practitioners….” Consular Lin seemed surprised and asked, “Really?” I said, “Of course, there are documents for you to look into it.”

At the end of the meeting, consular Lin said he was not the person who could make the decision regarding my passport. Regardless of who made the decisions, several Falun Gong practitioners in the DC area have been denied an extension of their passport, simply because they practice Falun Gong. Consular Lin was always the person who handled the interviews.

A month later, I applied for political asylum and officially became a refugee in the United States.

By chance, I met an American consulate official who had interviewed me before. When he heard that I was thinking about suing the Chinese government for depriving me of a passport, he asked me in bewilderment, “Why? Didn’t you already receive asylum status? Engaging in a lawsuit is very expensive.”

I told him, “If it’s only for me, I would not sue the Chinese government. But, do you know, the embassy and consulates are threatening Chinese students that they would not extend their passport or other excuses to force them not to stop practicing Falun Gong? I never heard of such things like this happening before the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999. Now they use their authority to threaten their fellow countrymen, to make them choose, and to create hatred. My suing the government is not only for myself, but for the righteousness. I only want to tell people that there is still right and wrong.”

The official said slowly, “I have met many people; the Chinese have left the deepest impression. There were the students who went to Tiananmen Square in 1989, and now there are you Falun Gong practitioners. I am deeply moved by your spirit. Nowadays, this is what is lacking in Americans.”

The spirit of the Chinese may be able to bring hope to this world. I feel that no one should have to be persecuted by their own country and become a refugee in other.