Speech by the Friends of Zhao Ming at a Recent Press Conference

Graduate Students Union Office, Trinity College Dublin, Ireland

Website: http://www.fozm.org

email: [e-mail]

Campaigning for the release of Trinity College student Zhao Ming from a Chinese Labour Camp

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Hello, my name is Jim Dowling and I am the spokesperson for the Friends of Zhao Ming. The Friends of Zhao Ming is a group involved in lobbying both Irish and Chinese Governments to obtain the official release of Zhao Ming by the Chinese government as well as his return to Ireland to continue his studies at Trinity College Dublin.

The FOZM group was set up in March ༼ as an umbrella group to help co-ordinate the great work of publicizing Ming's case by the Trinity G.S.U. and others. Our membership currently consists of Trinity Graduate Student's Union (G.S.U.) officers, Trinity College Computer Science students and lecturers, Falun Gong practitioners, Amnesty members, members of D.U. Meditation Society and students at second level schools.

The case of Zhao Ming is both shocking and scandalous.

Zhao Ming graduated from the Computer Science Department in Tsinghua University in 1993 and afterwards worked for Tsinghua Unisplendour Group as a network engineer, department manager and project leader for many years. In March 1999, he was admitted to the Computer Science Department at Trinity College in Dublin to pursue his Masters degree. In addition to studying in the Networks and Telecommunications Research Group (NTSG) and tutoring undergraduates, with the help of the D.U. Meditation Society he arranged for Falun Gong practice in Trinity.

I, personally, got to know Zhao Ming through the department and our shared interest in meditative practices. His enthusiasm for and belief in Falun Gong were both fascinating and persuasive. Ming started to practice Falun Gong in 1994 and had attended Mr. Li Hongzhi's lectures in Dalian, Liaoning Province. Before he practiced Falun Dafa, his health was so poor that, at times, he could not even work. Shortly after practicing Falun Dafa, he became completely healthy and full of energy. As a person who had greatly benefited from Falun Dafa, he spent his spare time actively promoting Falun Dafa and assisted other practitioners in Tsinghua University before he went to Ireland.

Ming was an idealist, in the noblest sense of the term. In January 2000, when he went home for the holidays during Christmas break, he was captured after filing a complaint against the government policy on Falun Gong and placed under house arrest. Indications are that he was arrested because of his religious beliefs and that the Chinese government then pressured him to write a confession agreeing not to complain about human rights violations in China again. According to an article in the Irish Times, it appears that Ming broke house arrest to attend a rally in Tiananmen Square, evaded capture by the Chinese police, and went into hiding somewhere in China. His whereabouts were unknown through the summer.

FOZM has learned that Ming has been detained without trial by the Chinese government in the Tuan He Farm Labour Camp near Beijing since May 2000. Our latest information is that he has been brutally tortured and forced to renounce his faith. Following is a transcript of the report on his conditions. Be warned that the description is quite graphic.

"In May this year, Ming was sentenced, without trial, to the Tuan He Farm Labour Camp, Daxing County, Beijing, probably for distributing leaflets denouncing the ban [on Falun Gong]. It is believed that he will serve at least two years in the Camp, where he has been subjected to vicious torture in order to force him to denounce Falun Gong. He was forced to sit in a wash basin, head between knees, and then pushed under a bed. When the bed was nudged upwards by his body, the torturers would sit on the bed. He was beaten by more than 10 people, who used wooden batons to strike his ankles and knees, used their knees to strike his body, and hit his ears. Following one such torture, Ming was unable to sit on a toilet for 5 days and unable to walk normally for two weeks."

This account of the torture endured by Ming was given to the Graduate Student's Union at Trinity College by Lord Moyne who received this via fax. Lord Moyne is a member of the British House of Lords and has brought Ming's issue before them.

Despite requests from FOZM, the Graduate Students' Union and others, the Chinese government has refused to disclose the reason for and details of Ming's detention.

What has FOZM been doing?

FOZM are involved in lobbying both the Irish and Chinese Governments to obtain the official release of Zhao Ming by the Chinese government.

We have met with Dublin's Lord Mayor Maurice Ahern on April 24th to discuss the case of Zhao Ming. We have been given assurances that he will be highlighting the case of Zhao Ming to the Chinese Authorities. FOZM and Trinity's G.S.U. organized a letter writing campaign on 10/4/01 at Trinity College Dublin and collected over 2000 signed letters from students petitioning the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Cowen T.D., the Chinese Ambassador to Ireland, the Premier of the People's Republic of China, Zhu Rongji, and the head of Tuan He Labour Camp where Ming is currently being held.

On Friday 27^th April FOZM, in conjunction with Amnesty Trinity and Trinity Student's Union, organized a "March for Ming" to the Dept. of Foreign Affairs at St. Stephen's Green. Over one hundred and twenty students participated in the march from Trinity College to Iveagh House, where six hundred letters and two 5'x5' signed petitions were delivered to the Office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

We believe that our goal of obtaining Ming's release is very much an attainable goal. Recently, on January 20, 2001, a precedent has been set where a Canadian-Chinese follower of the banned Falun Gong movement was released from a labour camp in China after he had been repeatedly tortured and feared he would die. Sculpture professor Zhang Kunlun was unexpectedly freed less than three months into a three-year sentence and, more importantly, less than a month before a major Canadian trade mission was due to tour China. His release helped ease political tensions between Ottawa and Beijing over China's human rights record. Ottawa had repeatedly urged Beijing to release Zhang, who was rearrested in Shandong in October after entering the country on his Chinese passport.

We are hopeful that Brian Cowen will adopt a similar stance toward the case of Zhao Ming before his upcoming visit to China later this month, (May 2001). It is only through concerted diplomatic pressure that we can secure the release of Ming and his return to Ireland to continue his studies.

Jim Dowling