Dr. Charles Lee, 38, was born and raised in Jiangsu Province of China. He moved to the United States and lived in Menlo Park, California, where he ran a successful herbal remedy business. In 2002 he became a U.S. citizen. He became engaged to Ms. Yeong-Ching Foo, 30.

On January 22, 2003, right after he disembarked from an airplane at Guangzhou airport, Chinese authorities arrested him on the charge of “attempting to sabotage a TV network.” He was arrested simply for what he “intended” to do - to assist in broadcasting evidence of the persecution of Falun Gong by overriding the signal of a state-controlled TV broadcast. Since February 2002, Falun Gong practitioners in China have tried to break through the country’s information blockade, which has not only concealed the persecution from most Chinese citizens, but has also promulgated lies and slander about Falun Gong.

Two months later, on March 21, 2003, in a trial put on merely for show which lasted only one day, the Intermediate Court of Yangzhou City, Jiangsu Province pronounced him guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison. On May 9, the court turned down his subsequent appeal.

After the trial, Dr. Lee was transferred to the Nanjing Prison in Nanling City, Jiangsu Province, where he has been denied the right to practice the Falun Gong exercises or read his Falun Gong books. Since his arrest, Dr. Lee has been denied all contact with his family or friends; he can receive no phone calls or letters from his fiancée. Prison guards have forced him to attend brainwashing sessions and have attempted to force him to renounce his belief and slander Falun Gong. When he has resisted, inmates, instigated by the guards, have twisted his arm, knocked him down to the ground, and dragged him down a flight of stairs. When he has refused to attend the brainwashing classes, he has been physically abused. At the brainwashing sessions, he has been forced to watch more than two hours of anti-Falun Gong programs at a time. At one point the guards increased the number of inmates in Dr. Lee’s cell from four to nine. These inmates were ordered to beat him whenever he tried to do the Falun Gong exercises.

While handcuffed, Dr. Lee wrote a 96-page document to give to U.S. consular officials, but ten pages were withheld. On May 27, Dr. Lee went on a hunger strike to protest the censorship of his document, his detention, and the treatment he had received in prison. He was force-fed.

After his hunger strike, the document in its entirety was handed to the U.S. consulate in Shanghai. In this document, Dr. Lee further revealed details of the kind of physical and mental abuse he has been suffering since his arrest: Upon his arrest at the Guangzhou airport, he was interrogated and deprived of sleep for three days and three nights. He was handcuffed and tied in agonizing positions for long periods of time; between March 27 and April 2 he was handcuffed for 130 consecutive hours. In February, he was tied to the iron “death bed” for nine hours, with his four limbs fully stretched out in opposing directions.

On June 25, U.S. consulate officials met with Dr. Lee and informed him that they had requested that the prison officials allow him to practice the exercises, but that their request had been rejected. Dr. Lee then began another hunger strike to protest his treatment and was once again violently force-fed. On one occasion the feeding tube inserted into his nose was left there for 33 hours straight, simply to increase his suffering. In July 2003, Chinese government officials forced Dr. Lee’s elderly parents to visit him in jail to pressure him to give up Falun Gong.

The U.S. State Department has protested with agencies related to the prison, but since November, Dr. Lee has been forced to attend anti-Falun Gong brainwashing sessions that occupy almost all of his time every day, aiming to break his belief and his will. A specially trained Chinese government official visits him every day, attempting to “transform” him, and the prison authorities continue to pressure him by harassing his family.

Since December 2003, Dr. Lee has been forced to do slave labor; he is made to glue soles to the bottoms of shoes. The prolonged exposure to the toxic and noxious chemicals in the glue has made him ill. He has a runny nose and nausea.

Since Dr. Lee’s arrest in China, his fiancée, Ms. Foo, has been tirelessly attending press events, visiting government offices, and collecting signatures in an effort to bring him back home to the U.S.