My Family and Zhao Ming: Two Stories of Persecution

I first met Zhao Ming, the Trinity Post Graduate, in July 1998. My first impression was that he was very bright and kind, and therefore, I asked him if he would like to come to Ireland to study. He then got an offer to study for a Master's Degree in the Department of Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin in late 1998 after I came back from my holiday in China. Zhao Ming arrived in Dublin on 17 March 1999, St Patrick's Day -- at that time I thought this was a good sign. Ming started his diligent study in his major soon after his arrival. He enjoyed the rich information and good research environment in the west. Also he fortunately made some good friends in the college, such as Mr Jim Dowling, a colleague in the same department. Jim is involved in the TCD [Trinity College, Dublin] meditation society, and because of similar interests, Jim introduced Ming to the meditation society and also helped Ming to establish a class to teach Falun Gong exercises. Everyone who met Ming said he was so nice, gentle, and always smiling.

Ming, two other friends and I shared a house in Charlemont on Griffith Avenue, where I still live. We also established a very good and solid friendship, because we all practised Falun Gong and shared interests in other things. Ming was also a very good cook; he often cooked very fine Chinese food for all of us and enjoyed helping others. Because Ming had benefited so much from the practice of Falun Gong, he wanted to share it with everyone, so they could get the same benefits. He and others of us went to the Mind-Body-Spirit exhibitions in both Dublin and Cork. Ming went to Galway City to promote Falun Gong, and he even went to Merrion Square to teach every day at lunchtime. Everything he did was completely voluntary.

However, when Ming suddenly heard that the Chinese government banned Falun Gong and started to persecute those good innocent people, many of whom were his good friends, teachers and colleagues, he could not bear reading those torture reports every day and imagining how those people were suffering. He felt helpless being here; therefore, he decided to go home and take a look at what was wrong there. Ming was a very righteous and honest person. He didn't believe that the government was so brutal, so he went to the State Appeals Office to tell the truth that he knew of the persecution, as well as his true experience of practicing Falun Dafa. He probably never expected that he would be arrested just for speaking the truth to the government, or that he would be jailed indefinitely. But anyway, he was arrested in January 2000, and his passport was confiscated; later he was put under house arrest. He had to go to Beijing to make a living, as he couldn't come back to Ireland to continue his studies. Unfortunately, Ming was arrested again in May 2000 at a friend's home; later in July, he was sentenced to Tuanhe Labour Camp in suburban Beijing for a year. He should have been released in May of this year, but again--as we expected--his sentence was extended another 10 months simply because he would not give up his belief in Falun Gong. Ming's only crime was to practice Falun Gong, which teaches people to follow 'Truthfulness, Compassion Forbearance,' and also makes people gain better health.

All Ming's friends miss him a lot as he's such a good, kind hearted and truthful person. I still remember how he liked eating meat, the nice meals he cooked for us and other friends, and his gentle and handsome smile. I cannot imagine how he looks now after being severely tortured for over 15 months. Ming was a slim but healthy young man. I don't how he would look after being deprived of sleep and food, and made to work long hours of hard labour.

I have met so many friendly and nice Irish people over the years, and I found people in the west can hardly imagine how people suffer from lack of freedom and basic human rights in other places, such as China. I was recently very, very upset after I was told that two sisters of mine had renounced Falun Gong, and were now encouraging other people detained in the same labour camp to renounce it as well. My brother and his wife went to see my sisters. What really surprised them was that the two sisters now were full of resentment and bitterness. They blamed Falun Gong, they blamed my brother, they even blamed me, saying all of us harmed them, and caused them to suffer in the camp. The whole day after I heard this, I could not believe it was true, because I knew how much these two sisters had sacrificed in the past two years. They had both been expelled from their companies, they had been detained, beaten, and tortured so many times; one of them even lost her family when her husband divorced her due to unbearable pressure from the government and the police. Finally she was sent to Jinan labour camp for a 3 year sentence without trial in December 2000. The other sister escaped when the police attempted to arrest her last December, and injured her hip jumping from the 3^rd floor of a building. After that, she had to wander around with no money, no family, and no friends for more than half a year before she was arrested again in July of this year. Each of the two sisters has a daughter in school. My mother is 73 years old now, and poor mum doesn't know what has happened to her daughters. She hasn't seen them since last December, and keeps asking where they have gone, what they are busy doing, etc. No one will tell her the truth, fearing that she will not be able to cope with the cruel situation. She hasn't seen me for over 3 years, and each time when I call her she keeps asking when I will come home.

Before the persecution, we had a very happy family. When I went home for the holidays, either from Beijing or Dublin, all my sisters and my brother also came home for several days to stay with us and we enjoyed our time together. After my father passed away in September 1998, my poor mother became very lonely. And now her daughters are 'missing' fom her life; her son is constantly detained and tortured (my brother has been detained many times, as he also practises Falun Gong), another daughter (myself) is thousands of miles away and might never be seen again. My family is only one example of millions of families persecuted in China. There are even families worse off than ours. In a family in Hubei Province, the son (Peng Min, died 6 April 2001) and the mother (Li Yingxiu, died in May 2001). Both were tortured to death, and all other family members are either being held in detention centres or in labour camps (the father, another son and a daughter). Wang Lixuan and her 8-moth-old baby son both were tortured to death in a labour camp. There are many other families in which the parents are detained, and the young children are left alone at home with nobody to look after them.

I don't know what more I can say to tell people, "Please help those innocent people in China. It might be just a word for you but it could save them from being tortured, killed, or even raped."

Thank you,

Dai Dongxue