An urgent plea from an anxious daughter. Wei Hongjuan is currently pursuing a bio-mechanics PhD in Germany.
Her mother, Huang Zuo-Lan, was abducted in China on Monday over her faith.
Huang practices Falun Gong, a spiritual meditation that's been brutally persecuted in the country for over two decades.
“My mind went blank when I heard about it,” said Wei, “At the time I was about to go to work, glancing at my phone, I saw my sister’s message that our mother had been abducted.”
Wei's sister tried to visit the local police station in Yantai city, Shandong province, where their mother had been detained. But she was turned away.
“The police pointed at my sister’s head and swore at her. He also dragged her clothes to get her to leave the police station. He was ferocious, and my sister was scared to tears,” said Wei.
She says her heart is really heavy now: “The police just suddenly showed up and abducted my mother. No warning at all. She just suddenly wasn't home anymore."
The same thing happened just a little over a decade ago.
“The day I took the college entrance exam, my father passed away due to a car accident. Two months later, police officers suddenly came and took my mom away just like this time. At the time I just graduated from high school, my younger sister was still in elementary school,” said Wei.
“I just felt, all of a sudden, our home was so empty.”
During that time, Wei's mother was released, but the police kept her under surveillance.
Wei is now calling for her mother's full release and more attention to the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.
So far, more than 5,300 have died as a result of the persecution, and an unknown number have had their organs forcibly harvested.
But the actual death toll is far higher due to Beijing's strict censorship of the information.