Citing safety threats, Chinese scientist Tang Juan asks to be moved to new housing in US as her house arrest continues
- The researcher, who is accused of hiding ties to China’s military, was earlier released from jail and put under house arrest in home of custodian Steven Cui
- Tang and Cui now in danger due to ‘hostile’ media reports and ‘violent threats’ on social media, her lawyers say
Citing “significant concerns” about the safety of the University of California, Davis, lawyers for Tang Juan – a Chinese researcher accused of lying about her ties to China’s military – are asking a federal judge to let her move out of a Bay Area home where she is under house arrest and into an apartment.
Tang has been living since September 10 in the home of Foster City lawyer Steven Cui, an émigré from China who had never before met or spoken to Tang but offered to take her in to show that the US justice system works fairly.
A judge agreed to release Tang from the Sacramento County Jail to live under supervision inside Cui’s home after the lawyer agreed to put up US$750,000 equity in his home that he would forfeit if Tang fled while awaiting trial on charges that she lied on her visa application to gain entry to the United States.
Since her release, however, growing tensions between the governments of the United States and China over American arrests of numerous Chinese scientists have created concerns for the safety of Tang, Cui and others living in or visiting his home, Sacramento lawyers Malcolm Segal and Tom Johnson wrote in a motion filed in Sacramento federal court.
“There has been a steady interest in this case in the local and national press in the United States, in part because of the defendant’s detention,” her lawyers wrote. “A photograph, claiming to be her likeness, has been widely published.