In December 2019, activist and musician Liu Sifang fled to Hong Kong in the middle of the night to escape arrest following his involvement in the Xiamen Gathering. This was an informal and private meeting of around 20 human rights lawyers and activists to discuss politics, but it sparked a nationwide crackdown on everyone involved.
He contacted his wife, Lu Lina, and asked her join him and bring their then seven-year-old son. Liu had just found out that some of his friends had been arrested and felt he had no choice but to go into exile.
The next day Lu and their son boarded a Hong Kong-bound train in Guangzhou. Liu waited for them at the Kowloon terminus in Hong Kong.
Neither of them imagined the CCP would stop a mother and her young son from travelling to Hong Kong.
“The CCP hadn’t been using collective punishment so severely in the past. There was no precedent for stopping family members from leaving,” Liu remembers.
He waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Three hours had gone past the time they were due to arrive. And his wife wasn’t answering her phone. Station staff told him there were no delays and that was it for the night – there were no more trains.
That’s when he knew for sure something was wrong.
His family had been put under an exit ban to punish him.
Police board the train
Over the border in China, Lu Lina and her son had successfully boarded their train in Guangzhou.
When it stopped at a station in Shenzhen, just across the border from Hong Kong, she saw a group of police officers get onto the train and start walking down the aisle towards them.
“I kind of suspected they were looking for me,” she says. “I didn’t know what to do. I felt so helpless when I thought that I might never be able to see my husband again.”
The police confiscated her phone, grabbed her luggage and bundled them off the train and into a car. Frightened, her little boy started crying.
Lu was held incommunicado for three days in a secret detention system called Residential Surveillance at a Designated Location (RSDL).
Three years apart
The next three years were tough.
In Hong Kong, Liu was devastated. He knew that if he returned to China, the police would immediately detain him and he wouldn’t be able to help his family if he was behind bars.
“I knew I couldn’t go back to China, so my only choice was to go to the US.”
In China, Lu was forced to move house and their son was turned away from several schools.
“In the beginning, I felt hopeless,” she says. “I felt we would never be together as a family again. I was also very worried about our son never being able to go to school again. It was such a stressful time.”
Meanwhile, Liu had made a life for himself in the US and found work. Every day husband and wife would speak via video call, and try to support each other.
“It was very difficult,” remembers Liu. “And after three years I felt the separation from my son very keenly. We felt extremely troubled but we didn’t have any other choice. We just had to deal with it.”
Lu made three other attempts to leave China in those three years. She tried Hong Kong again, then Macau and lastly she attempted to fly from Chengdu.
Each time, the border officials blocked them.
“They didn’t give me any documents to explain why; they just said according to this and this Article of the law, you are forbidden from leaving China,” says Lu. “Informally, they told us it was because of my husband.”
Getting divorced to be together
After two years of being apart, they came up with an idea.
What if they got divorced? Would the CCP lift the collective punishment from Lu and their son?
“My wife and child were being punished because of me… After two years we thought about dissolving our legal relationship to see if that would help. So through video call, we legally got divorced.”
Court hearings in China can legally be held using video links, including granting divorces.
Ten months after the divorce, in October 2022, Lu was told her exit ban would be lifted.
Family reunited
In December 2022, Lu and their son finally began their journey to the US.
First stop was Macau.
“I felt very anxious as I passed the border,” she remembers. “It was truly unbelievable that I could make it to Macau. I thought they might capture me and take me back.”
From Macau, they flew to Taipei and then onto the US.
“I finally felt free,” she says. “I had escaped the oppression of the CCP.”
Liu was waiting for them at the airport.
“I was extremely happy and excited. When my wife and child were in front of me, I couldn't believe it was real. After so many years of separation, that moment felt like a dream, very surreal. It wasn't until a few months later that I realized it wasn't a dream; it was real.”
And free from the CCP’s collective punishment, Liu and Lina happily got remarried in the US.
