“At my wedding, we placed a single rose on his chair to symbolize his presence and celebrate his place in my life. I continue to keep that rose safe and present until the day we meet again and I can hand it to him and tell him the story of how he has always been with me,” Ms. Wang said.
Danielle Wang is the oldest of the five daughters who testified before a subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs on Dec. 5, 2013. Her father, Wang Zhiwen, was a railway engineer and a volunteer contact person for the traditional spiritual practice of Falun Dafa (also called Falun Gong) in Beijing before he was seized at home on the night of July 20, 1999. On that day the Chinese Communist Party launched a brutal persecution against the peaceful spiritual practice. In a staged, nationally televised “trial,” Mr. Wang was sentenced to 16 years.
“At my wedding, we placed a single rose on his chair to symbolize his presence and celebrate his place in my life. I continue to keep that rose safe and present until the day we meet again and I can hand it to him and tell him the story of how he has always been with me,” Ms. Wang said.
Danielle Wang cried throughout her testimony, but particularly when she held up a small tree branch that her father had polished in prison. “15 years, this is the only thing I got from him,” she said. The gift arrived two months ago, sent by a relative who had been able to visit her father in prison.
Wang said during her father’s imprisonment, both of his collarbones had been smashed, his teeth pulled out, and police had pierced under the fingernails with sharp bamboo sticks.
