ALBANY — While the Olympics continue in Beijing, three women whose parents were arrested in a pre-Olympic roundup called Tuesday for their release.

Annie Li, who has lived in Albany since 2006, said it’s been too painful to watch the Olympics while her mother and others are being oppressed by Chinese authorities.

Li said her mother, Shizen Qin, was arrested on May 23 by Chinese authorities and on May 24 was taken to a brainwashing center because she practices Falun Gong, a school of Buddhism that the government wants to suppress, terming it a cult.

Li was joined at a news conference at the Capitol by Feather Shang and Jin Pang, who say their relatives in China have also been arrested for practicing Falun Gong.

They said they worry that once the Olympics end on Sunday the international attention paid to China’s persecution of Falun Gong adherents will cease.

“After the focus of the international community on China, the communists will do whatever they want to do,” said the 36-year-old Li, who broke into tears as she spoke about her 67-year-old mother. She worries that her mother will be murdered.

She said she believes the Chinese people deserve the Olympic games. “What we are upset and disappointed about is that the Chinese government persecutes the Chinese people. I did not watch the opening ceremonies. I know the bloodshed and tears behind them,” said Li.

Li has written to congressional representatives and Assemblyman Jack McEneny, D-Albany, has written a letter to a Communist Party official in Gansu asking for help in locating Qin and getting her a passport so she can visit the United States, but Li is still waiting for a reply.

Assemblyman Tim Gordon, D-Slingerlands, who represents the 108th Assembly District, said on Tuesday he’s met many practitioners of Falun Gong in the Capital Region. And, he said, many American citizens of Chinese descent are dealing with horrendous crimes against their relatives.

Gordon said the Chinese government spent billions of dollars preparing for the Olympics to show the world its “new face,” but he said there’s something amiss with how they treat their citizens. “If they are interested in showing the world they allow human rights to citizens, they have to allow Annie’s mom to contact her and allow her to come to America.”

According to the U.S. State Department, “Family members of activists and rights defenders, Falun Gong practitioners, journalists, unregistered religious figures and former political prisoners were targeted for arbitrary arrest and detention. Falun Gong sources estimated that since 1999 at least 6,000 Falun Gong practitioners have been sent to prison and more than 100,000 practitioners sentenced to re-education through labor, and almost 3,000 died from torture while in custody.”