(Clearwisdom.net) On the afternoon of May 11, Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao arrived in Ireland, the current Chair-nation of the European Union, on the last stop of his European visit. On the evening of the same day, Falun Gong practitioners held a peaceful appeal outside the Dublin Castle in which the Irish Premier and Chairman of European Parliament, Bertie Ahern, had a summit with Premier Wen. Falun Gong practitioners called on the Chinese authorities to "Bring Jiang Zemin and Bo Xilai to Justice" and stop Jiang and his followers from persecuting Falun Gong. Practitioners also called on the Chinese Premier to allow two Falun Gong practitioners, Liu Feng and Yang Fang, to return to Ireland to continue their study.
|
|  |
|  |
Falun Gong practitioners also distributed one-page newsletters to people who came to the Castle for Premier Wen's reception banquet. The newsletter was specially designed for this appeal and clarified the fact that the persecution does not reflect the will of either the Chinese people, but is being orchestrated by former Chinese president Jiang Zemin and his group of followers.
On the afternoon of May 11, just before Premier Wen arrived in Ireland, three members of the Irish Falun Dafa Association were invited to testify at a Falun Gong hearing hosted by the Human Rights Committee of the Irish Parliament. After the practitioners' testimony, members of Parliament (MP) sponsored an urgent motion to request Irish Premier Bertie Ahern to bring up the cases of Liu Feng and Yang Fang during his meeting with Mr. Wen on the evening of the same day.
In the past several years, organizations such as Amnesty International Ireland, Pan-Irish Student Union and Student Unions of several Dublin Major Universities have been working very hard to rescue Liu Feng and Yang Fang. A number of MPs have brought up the case of these two students several times to Irish Premier and Minister for Foreign Affairs. When former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji visited Ireland in 2001, Irish Premier Bertie Ahern requested his counterpart to release Irish Trinity College student Zhao Ming, who was being illegally detained in a labor camp at that time. In the beginning of 2002, Mr. Brian Cowen, Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs, brought up Zhao Ming's case to Chinese government officials again when he visited China. In March of 2002, Zhao Ming was released and returned to Ireland. People from all circles hope that the new Chinese Premier's visit will help secure the release of Liu Feng and Yang Fang as well.
