A Los Angeles resident is appealing to a bipartisan congressional commission for help in saving the life of her wrongfully imprisoned nephew in China.

Karen Kang, a U.S. citizen, has penned a letter to Rep. Chris Smith (D-N.J.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (R-Ore.), chair and co-chair of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), respectively. In her letter, she said that her nephew Hou Lijun, who is more than 50 years old, has been “tortured physically and psychologically” in prison due to his faith.

“He is in critical condition now,” Kang recently told The Epoch Times, noting that since she sent the letter, she learned from sources in China’s judiciary that Hou was transferred from his prison cell to China’s 109 Hospital, which is run by the Chinese regime’s public security apparatus, due to his poor health.

“It pains my heart greatly that I just cannot eat or sleep well. I just think about him all the time,” she said.

Kang said that many in her family in northern China’s Shanxi Province are Falun Gong practitioners, including herself; her older sister, Kang Shuqin, and her son, Hou; and her younger sister, Kang Shumei, and her son, Zhang Gu. The older sister was imprisoned for her faith and passed away in 2020 after enduring years of inhuman treatment, including torture, in the prison.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that encourages its adherents to live by moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The practice was enormously popular in China by the late 1990s, with official estates putting the number of people taking up the practice at more than 70 million.

The Chinese Communist Party (CCP), perceiving the practice’s popularity as a threat to its rule, ordered the eradication of Falun Gong in 1999, launching a campaign to violently arrest Falun Gong practitioners and throw them into prisons, brainwashing centers, and forced labor camps.

Persecution

Hou was arrested on April 25, 2023, and later sentenced to 10 years in prison without a trial. In June of that year, he was sent to Jinzhong Prison in Qi county, Shanxi Province.

In her letter, Kang documented some of the “severe persecution” that her nephew had been subjected to in Jinzhong Prison, such as forced feeding and slave labor.

Once, Hou defended a fellow Falun Gong practitioner against assault at the prison and was punished by a prison official, who slapped him, tied him to a torture device called the “tiger chair,” handcuffed him, and strangled him with a rope, according to the letter. Hou was also hit in the eyes and deprived of sleep for three days.

Days after the incident, Hou went on a hunger strike to protest the ill-treatment he had endured but was sent to solitary confinement, Kang wrote.

Hou was temporarily transferred from the prison to the 109 Hospital because his life “was in danger,” she wrote. However, doctors at the hospital “denied him medical treatment and refused to keep him hospitalized in fear of taking responsibility for his critical health,” she said.

A hospital inside the prison twice issued a “critical illness notice” for Hou, saying he was suffering from multiple health conditions, including severe arrhythmia, severe anemia, and edema of both lower limbs, according to the letter.

Kang said that a family member had requested that Hou be released on medical parole earlier this year, but there “was no response” to the demand.

Kang noted in her letter that she didn’t know the present location of her younger sister and her son, as both were arrested in 2022.

Help

Kang’s case also illustrates the CCP’s efforts to silence overseas dissidents and activists with tactics such as intimidation, coercion, and harassment—actions that are collectively known as transnational repression.

“The authorities are using my pictures and telling my family members in China that I shouldn’t speak publicly or report this to U.S. officials. I understand the risks, but I am desperate to find answers and ensure their safety,” Kang wrote.

In September 2023, Rep. Linda Sánchez (D-Calif.) wrote a letter to Secretary of State Antony Blinken on behalf of her constituent Kang, urging him to contact the judicial system in Shanxi and to “insist that they release Ms. Kang’s relatives immediately.”

Kang joined many Falun Gong practitioners in San Francisco in November 2023 to stage peaceful protests near the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation meetings, demanding that CCP leader Xi Jinping release imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners.

During a rally in Washington in July, Piero Tozzi, the staff director of the CECC, spoke out against the CCP’s 25-year-long persecution of Falun Gong, mentioning Hou’s case in his speech and calling for his release.

Since July 1999, millions have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities, with hundreds of thousands tortured while incarcerated and untold numbers killed, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

Kang asked Smith and Merkley to write a letter to Jinzhong Prison requesting Hou’s release and another letter to Blinken to ensure her nephew receives medical parole and is released as soon as possible.

For more than 20 years, Kang said, her family in China has not had a moment of peace. Whenever Chinese officials couldn’t find a particular Falun Gong practitioner in her family, she said, they would show up at her parents’ home, smash the doors, and harass them with questions.

“They arrest you for no reason,” she said.