FDI Media Alert: Falun Gong: Masanjia Hunger Striker Near Death

After being on hunger strike for forty days, she was sent to the woman's medical clinic at Masanjia Labor Camp. According to clinic personnel, she has been force fed through the nose during her stay at the clinic, a brutal and sometimes fatal procedure that involves forcing a tube through the patient's nose, down the throat and into the stomach. Numerous cases have been reported of people dying from injuries sustained during this type of force-feeding procedure at various labor camps throughout China.

SOS Urgent Rescue Zhao Ming Campaign Team Press Release

16 October 2001

Zhao Ming is a postgraduate student in the Computer Science Department at Trinity College Dublin. During his time in Ireland, he became an active member of the Dublin community, teaching in Trinity College, participating in the Dublin University Meditation Society, and leading Falun Gong workshops. After a visit to China over the holidays in the winter of 1999-2000, Ming was prevented from returning to Ireland, and was subsequently detained without trial and tortured repeatedly because of his involvement with the outlawed Falun Gong practice. Immediately after his detention, several local groups, including Amnesty International, the Graduate Students' Union at Trinity College and Falun Gong got involved in advocating for his release. Since that time, these groups have lobbied Trinity College officials, Irish senators, TDs (members of Parliament), government ministers and MEPs to raise Ming' case with Chinese authorities. Concerned groups have organised several protests targeting the Chinese Vice Premier (April 2000), the Chinese Embassy (November 2000), the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs (April 2001) and the Chinese Premier (September 2001). Trinity College Students generated 2000 letters in one day on Ming' behalf, which were sent to the Irish Foreign Minister, the Chinese Ambassador, the Chinese Premier and the head of the Labour Camp where Ming was held. Over 50 MEPs wrote letters to the Chinese premier Zhu Rongji to ask for his release on Ming' behalf. In early 2001, Friends of Zhao Ming was formed to coordinate the efforts of the several groups actively seeking his freedom. Thanks to the cooperation of Irish media services, Ming' plight and efforts to free him are widely known in Ireland.

Speech by Frank Jennings of Amnesty International, Irish Section (Excerpt)

1st October 2001

Frank Jennings, Campaign Manager

Amnesty International Irish Section

Developments in the human rights situation in China over the past few months represent a major set back for human rights and the "rule of law" in China, and a new step backwards since the deterioration in human rights which started in late 1998.

Message of Support from MEP Patricia McKenna

It has been almost two years now that Trinity College' Zhao Ming, a Falun Gong practitioner, was summarily arrested and detained without trial by the Chinese authorities when he went temporarily back to his homeland. What was his crime? He simply practised meditative exercises which are designed, "to improve the mind and body..., and to improve the moral characters by following the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance." It appears to be because of the popularity of Falun Gong that the Chinese government decided to eradicate it and launched an offensive against the movement in July 1999.

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