Families of The Alleged Spies
Wo Weihan's wife and junior daughter saw Wo Weihan on the morning of November 27. Neither he nor they were given official confirmation that the sentence had been approved and that an execution was pending. The elder daughter of Wo expected to be able to see her father that week after the Chinese Ministry Foreign Affairs promised to the Austrian Embassy in Beijing that a second visit would be allowed for the elder daughter. However, Wo was executed on the morning of November 29, to the surprise of the family and the Austrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. This broken promise led to very strained relations between the Austrian and Chinese Ministries of Foreign Affairs. Austria viewed it as an intentional affront.
According to Qing Gang, the spokesman of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,".....Wo Weihan is a Chinese citizen.... He could not be treated in a different way only because he has some foreign relatives."
Mr. Guo's family were not allowed to visit Mr. Guo during the years of imprisonment, and only five days after the execution, which they had found out about through Wo's family, did they receive a notice that they could pick up Mr. Guo's ashes.
Read more about this topic: Wo Weihan
Famous quotes containing the words families, alleged and/or spies:
“Many older wealthy families have learned to instill a sense of public service in their offspring. But newly affluent middle-class parents have not acquired this skill. We are using our children as symbols of leisure-class standing without building in safeguards against an overweening sense of entitlement—a sense of entitlement that may incline some young people more toward the good life than toward the hard work that, for most of us, makes the good life possible.”
—David Elkind (20th century)
“About the alleged condition of the property. Does it have to be intact?”
—Margaret Forster, British screenwriter, Peter Nichols, and Silvio Narizzano. Georgy (Lynn Redgrave)
“Thus—thanks to the world!—are there many spies in the world’s camp, who are mistaken for strolling simpletons.”
—Herman Melville (1819–1891)