Mr. Lian's sister was attempting to travel to the United States for a year in order to help Mr. Lian's wife recover from a serious illness. After obtaining a passport from a travel agency by changing the writing of her Chinese character name, but by keeping the same Romantic spelling on the passport, she was detained for 24 hours before being permitted to contact her parents. Since then, she has been held in Yi Guanmiao jail.
Chinese police deny confiscating the money.
According to Mr. Lian, the Chinese government has been employing a duel strategy to silence overseas dissidents in recent years. In a few of the most famous cases, including Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan, the government used them as bargaining chips in bilateral relations with the US government. For instance, their family members were allowed to leave China without incident. But in the cases of less well-known dissident leaders, who are still actively opposing the Chinese regime, the government has employed decidedly harsher tactics, including intimidation of family members and the denial of passports for travel. Earlier this year, the Chinese government refused to grant Mr. Lian's parents their passport applications so that they could visit their newborn grandson in America.