Ireland: Letter from an Irish Citizen Appealing for Justice for Falun Gong practitioners in China

Dear Minister Dempsey,

I have been living in Ireland for the last three years, and I am very fond of the area and of the country. We have great freedom in Ireland and are allowed to voice our opinion and practise whatever spiritual belief we choose. I would like to now bring to your attention what a person like me can expect in China for doing just that!

As both a human being and a Falun Gong practitioner, I feel I must ask you to condemn the murder, torture, and illegal imprisonment and persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China. I have been a practitioner for a year and a half now and the practice has improved my health, and physical fitness and upgraded my moral character. It has helped me in both my everyday work and home life. I am more understanding and tolerant of others and try to apply the principles of Falun Dafa (Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance) in everything that I do.

There are over 100 million practitioners worldwide in over 50 countries and China is the only country that persecutes Falun Dafa and has done so for over three years. Practitioners are law-abiding and only try to improve their moral standard while keeping healthy and fit.

The Irish Government has helped a Trinity College Student to return to Ireland from China after being imprisoned and tortured for over two and a half years. I am afraid there are many more that are in the same situation. There are two students, Yang Fang and Lui Feng from Dun Laoghaire, who are imprisoned and cannot return to their studies here in Ireland for the same reason: because they practise Falun Dafa and are trying to be good people.

I implore you to bring this to the attention of the Irish government and urge them to condemn the persecution. There are sites that you can visit and get first hand information on this such as www.clearharmony.net.

This persecution does not care what age or sex you are; men, women and babies have been tortured and murdered. One 8-month-old baby’s death has already been used as leverage against a mother to force her to stop practising Falun Dafa.

The figures that we know of are:

• 572 deaths – however, we have received information that this figure is very likely to be over 1,600.
• 6000 Falun Gong practitioners have also been illegally sentenced to prison.
• Over 100,000 practitioners have been sentenced to forced labour camps.
• Thousands of practitioners have been forcefully sent to psychiatric hospitals to be tortured with injections that are damaging to the central nervous system.
• Large groups of Falun Gong practitioners have been forcefully sent to local brainwashing classes, where they have been subjected to both physical and mental torture.

Many more practitioners have been severely beaten and had large sums of money extorted from them by so-called "law-enforcement officials." Large numbers of Falun Gong practitioners are being beaten to death, injured, and their families are broken up; they have to leave home and go from place to place because of the persecution; millions of Falun Gong practitioners' families, relatives, good friends and colleagues are also implicated and brainwashed to varying degrees.

All of this has happened in the last three years and continues to happen.

There are false messages fed to the people in China about Falun Gong practitioners committing suicide, self-immolation, murder etc. On Falun Gong websites there are video deconstructions of these that show in slow motion that all of these are staged to frame Falun Gong. The teachings of Falun Gong are against harming life, including oneself.

Also one thing that is of note, how is it that in the more than 50 countries where Falun Gong is practised, is it only China where this so-called self-immolation and suicide is taking place. There is not one instance of crimes taking place in any other country.

I could go on but do not want to defeat the purpose of this mail, which is to urge both yourself and the Irish Government to condemn this persecution. Somebody once said, “All good men have to do to let evil flourish, is to do nothing”. When Hitler’s Genocide became known, people asked how could we have let it happen.

The fear now is that with the threat of the war with Iraq looming that this genocide in China will go on undetected, and thousands more will die for their belief in, Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance. How long will it be before the world says, “How could we have let that happen?”

Let’s not make the same mistake again, for everyone’s sake.

Thank you for your time and consideration

Regards
[name omitted]