Chinese Labor Leader, Family Arrive in U.S.
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NEW YORK — A prominent Chinese labor leader and his family arrived in the United States on Sunday night, the latest of a number of dissidents freed into exile on medical parole by the Beijing government in the last year.
Liu Nianchun, 50, his wife, Chu Halin, and their 11-year-old daughter flew into New York from China via Vancouver, Canada, on the eve of a trial in China of another dissident trying to establish an opposition group to the Communist Party government.
Two other party organizers were tried last week, and nine other members are in custody, according to human rights monitors in Hong Kong.
Liu, who tried to establish independent labor unions, was arrested without a warrant in 1995 and sentenced without trial to three years in a labor camp for drafting a petition calling for an official reassessment of the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests, which were ended with a deadly assault by Chinese Army troops and tanks.
The term was later extended, again without judicial process. Liu was tortured and denied food and water after he protested the extension. He suffers from high blood pressure and intestinal problems, the U.S.-based group Human Rights in China said.
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