My thoughts on the "Free Zhao Ming" Rally in Ireland

A Western Practitioner in Ireland

Editor,

I am an Irish practitioner. Last Wednesday, some Irish pracititioners along with the some Dublin Trinity College students held a rally in front of the Chinese Embassy to strongly urge the Chinese government to release Zhao Ming, a former Trinity postgraduate student, and to make more people aware of the current crisis in China.

In my opinion it was a great success. The Irish Times newspaper covered the rally. The Trinity students were wonderful. From about 3 o'clock to 6, the students shouted slogans non stop. I was touched by their enthusiasm. Because of this I realized some of my shortcomings. These were ordinary people, and I am a practitioner. I thought that I should be able to do more, to get Zhao Ming released and especially to verify and safeguard Dafa. Master was using the rally to let me see another one of my attachments.

After this I know that I can do much more than I had been doing. I sent countless E-mails. To the T.D.'s in Ireland, to Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the United Nations. I think it is a good thing did because I found the Universal declaration of Human Rights, <>.

Nearly all on the rights granted by the article in the declaration were taken for granted by me. However, when I looked at these articles, something struck me. Ming has been deprived of these most fundamental rights for almost 6 months now (counting only the time spent in the labour camp). And how many more of the articles is the Chinese government breaking?

When E-mailing the T.D.'s and U.N., I pointed out that China was violating many of these articles by imprisoning and torturing Ming. However, I failed to realize that I also needed to tell the T.D.'s and U.N. about how many more were violated when China banned Falun Gong last year.

About a week after the rally, I recieved a response from the Irish government about Zhao Ming. It states "As he [Zhao Ming] is not an Irish citizen, Ireland has no consular function in this matter".

I think that as a practitoner of this DaFa, I should focus more on helping ,along with other practitioners, to verify the Fa and restore the innocence of both Dafa and our Teacher. It seemed that I lost sight of this and began to focus more on the well being of one individual rather than all practitioners. After all, if all practitioners are released, then Ming will also be allowed to return to Ireland.

I hope this will help some practitioners in safeguarding and recifying the Fa.

Heshi.