Monday, November 20, 2000

Students at Trinity College Dublin are to march to the Chinese embassy in the city thisweek to call for the release of a former classmate imprisoned and allegedly tortured in alabour camp near Beijing.

Mr Zhao Ming (30), a postgraduate computer science student and former tutor at theuniversity, was arrested on a visit home last Christmas because of his membership of theoutlawed spiritual movement, Falun Gong.

His passport was confiscated and he went into hiding for six months but was rearrested in afresh clampdown against the movement and sentenced to two years at the Tuan He Farmlabour camp in Daxing County.

According to human rights campaigners, he has been beaten and tortured into signing astatement denouncing Falun Gong, whose practices centre on breathing exercises andmeditation.

An estimated 82 Falun Gong practitioners have been killed in police custody since themovement was banned [...] in July 1999.

Ms Dai Dongxue, a Dublin-based Falun Gong member, said concern was growing for MrMing's welfare. "We haven't heard anything about him for a few weeks now and we arevery worried. The conditions in the camps are very bad."

Wednesday's protest is being organised by the graduate and undergraduate students'unions at Trinity, along with Amnesty International, Falun Gong practitioners in Ireland andother human rights campaigners. The rally will start at 1.30 p.m. at Trinity's Front Gate,reassembling at the Chinese embassy on Ailesbury Road at 3.30 p.m.

A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that as Mr Ming was not an Irishcitizen, it had no consular function in the matter.