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Chinese authorities recently arrested the mother of a Chinese virologist who has accused the regime in Beijing of a coverup of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Yan Limeng confirmed her motherâs arrest to The Epoch Times on Oct. 5, but declined to provide further details.
Yan, who fled Hong Kong and sought asylum in the United States in April, recently released a paper that she co-authored, which claims that the âbiological characteristicsâ of the virus suggest that it didnât originate from nature. The study hasnât been peer-reviewed.
A postdoctoral researcher at the University of Hong Kong before coming to the United States, Yan had worked at the universityâs public health laboratory, which provides coronavirus research for the World Health Organization. On Dec. 31 last year, after Chinese authorities acknowledged dozens of infection cases in Wuhan, her supervisor asked her to conduct a âsecret investigationâ through her network in mainland China, she said in a prior interview.
Her boss took her off the case but requested her input again soon afterâwith a warning not to âcross the red line,â she said.
The research, she said, led her to conclude that the situation was far more grim than Beijing had admitted, and she began secretly delivering the information to the Western world.
Fearing retaliation for speaking out, she fled Hong Kong. Chinese authorities threatened her family in mainland China, while Hong Kong police pried information about her from her friends by claiming that she was âinvolved in a criminal case,â she said.
The scientific community has pushed back on her claims after she linked the virusâs origins to a lab in Wuhan in her latest paper, with some calling it speculative. Twitter quickly banned her account after she announced the paper in a tweet.
The University of Hong Kong acknowledged that Yan was a former employee at the university, but disavowed any of Yanâs âpast or present opinions and views,â in a July 11 statement following her first interview with U.S. media.