Tearful Chinese Student ‘Would Rather Die’ Than Go Home

A Chinese student wept during an immigration hearing Friday as she described her father’s imprisonment during her country’s Cultural Revolution and said she “would rather die” than return to her homeland.

“If we return, it’s like a Death Row. My life will be like my father’s and many others,” said Hoy Yu Li, 27, who along with her fiance, Luo Jian Guang, 32, fled China through Hong Kong and is seeking political asylum.

The two students sought asylum after leading a protest in Tokyo on June 4 against the Chinese army’s bloody repression of unarmed Tian An Men Square demonstrators.

Immigration Judge Bernard Hornbach continued the hearing until Friday and advised an attorney for the students to seek Hoy’s release from custody through immigration officials so that she could seek medical treatment for ulcer-like symptoms.

Mental Deterioration

During two hours of dramatic testimony, Hoy described how her father, a poet, deteriorated mentally during his incarceration and how her brother tried twice to swim the river between China and Hong Kong before succeeding in 1976.

Asked whether she would be willing to return to China, Hoy grew somber and said, “I’d rather die.”

Luo had been studying business and Hoy linguistics at a university in Tokyo for more than two years before the June 4 protest in front of the Chinese Embassy in Tokyo.

After the protest, the couple received anonymous threats at their home in Tokyo, they said. With the aid of students in Hong Kong, they fled to San Francisco on Aug. 7 to seek asylum.

Their attorney, Eugene Wong, said the two students have legitimate fears of persecution if they are returned to China.

He also said the case could be the model for other Chinese residents in the United States who have spoken out against the current regime in Beijing.

The U.S. government estimates that there are 73,000 Chinese students in the country. President Bush decided in June to allow students who were in the country at the time of the Beijing crackdown to remain here.

‘Important Precedent’

“We . . . seek to prove that being a pro-democracy student constitutes membership in a particular social group under the 1980 Refugee Act,” Wong said. “If we succeed, this will set a very important precedent that may enable other pro-democracy students to be granted asylum in the U.S.”

A decision could come immediately after Friday’s hearing or within the next few weeks, he said.

Since turning themselves over to immigration authorities, Luo has been held in a Laredo, Tex, city jail, while Hoy has been at a detention center in San Diego.