I’m Lucy Mingyuan Liu, a second-year student at Sheridan’s post-graduate Animation certificate program, and a scholarship recipient of the Tibor Madjar award for best animation. 

I’m seeking your support for the release of my mother Yan Liu from arbitrary detention and jail sentence in China for her spiritual belief in Falun Gong. On September 30, 2021, Chinese police kidnapped my mother. She is currently illegally detained at Kunming detention center, the capital city of Yunnan province.

My mother Yan Liu is a dedicated English language educator with over 20 years of teaching experience at post-secondary institutions. Two decades ago, she worked at Jilin University-Lambton College in the northeastern Chinese city of Changchun, a job that brought her into contact with a lot of Canadian academics. My father Yong Liu is an accomplished artist and art teacher, he was named one of the top one hundred Chinese painters in 2003 in my country.

Today, I am telling my story and taking a public stance to ask the international community, government actors, and human rights organizations to help me and call on the Chinese Communist Party to immediately release my mother and stop the persecution of Falun Gong.

I hope you can help lead a voice for my mother and for all victims currently silenced and suppressed under the brutal Chinese regime. Your help will make a real difference!