Cailu Xu, a research associate at the University of Pittsburgh, wants to send a Valentine to his wife.
But the Oakland resident knows it probably will never reach her without help from U.S. authorities. That's because his wife, Xiaomei Jia, 41, remains jailed in a notorious prison in China.
-On the front of the Valentine, two butterflies take flight, symbolizing the 40-year-old Chinese engineer's hope that his wife of 14 years will be freed and travel 6,800 miles to join him in the United States.
Since November 2001, Jia has been held in Beijing's Female Forced Labor Camp, a place where prisoners are reportedly deprived of sleep and proper nutrition, and denied use of the toilet, exposed to extreme temperatures and tortured with electric batons.
Jia and her husband practice Falun Gong, a Chinese form of meditation and five slow physical exercises designed to improve the mind, body and spirit. Practitioners say they strive for truth, forbearance and compassion.