Dear Prime Minister Albanese,

I am writing to you with deep urgency and sorrow.

My name is Lyu Zhanqiu, and I come from China (ID Number: xxx). I am a former software engineer and a self-taught legal advocate who has long engaged in peaceful human rights work in China. On February 17, 2023, I was arrested, interrogated, body searched, detained, and subjected to persecution simply because I questioned the legality of the police's actions.

In China's authoritarian system, the police, prosecutors, and courts are not independent — they act as one, fully controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). From the moment I tried to assert my legal rights, I was placed under strict surveillance. Any attempt to file a legal complaint would have immediately triggered further detention, persecution, or torture. I was deprived of all legal remedies and utterly trapped.

On July 16, 2023, I was forced to flee China. I had no other means of survival.

But I could not take all my family with me. Now, they are suffering the consequences of the regime's retaliation against me.

My father, nearly 80 years old and nearly blind, struggles daily in silence.

My son, an honest young man with a university degree who has always followed the law, has been punished solely because I spoke out. He was dismissed from his job, left without any source of income, and barred from leaving the country. The constant pressure from the CCP and relentless social surveillance has driven him into severe psychological distress.

This is collective punishment — cruelty beyond words, inflicted not for what they have done, but for who I am and what I represent. And it is all happening under the rule of a regime that increasingly defies international norms and human dignity.

Prime Minister Albanese, Australia has always stood for freedom, democracy, and human rights. Your country has a proud history of supporting those oppressed by authoritarian regimes. Your government recognizes that democracy and dictatorship cannot peacefully coexist — that appeasing human rights abusers only encourages more abuse.

As you prepare to meet with the CCP leadership on July 15, I make a direct, personal, and urgent plea:

Please raise my case with the CCP leadership. Urge them to end the persecution of my son and allow him to leave China.

His life is at risk. If this continues unchecked, it may end in irreversible tragedy.

The CCP has not improved on human rights. On the contrary, it has grown more repressive. If the world — and democratic leaders like yourself — do not speak out now, this silence will be seen as complicity.

Please do not allow this visit to pass without raising these humanitarian concerns. I speak not only for myself, but for so many in China who are silenced, punished, and destroyed — and for our families who suffer in the shadows.

I have nothing left to lose but hope. And I place that hope in your leadership.

I respectfully await your response.

Sincerely,
Lyu Zhanqiu
Chinese Human Rights Advocate in Exile
Email:[email protected]
https://doourbest.org
July 8, 2025