Whenever Zhizhen Dai finishes her speech, she always ends by saying that there is only one person whom she will never forget. “I would have started a new life, but whenever I talk about this, I feel my heart is broken.”
From the day she lost her husband to the day her elder brother’s wife was detained; from her anxious wait for information to the time she read on the Internet about her husband not having survived the torture in a Chinese prison, Ms. Dai has often talked about what happened.
This female University graduate, who holds a Bachelor of Science Degree in Business Economics, has travelled the world as a witness to the persecution of Falun Gong by the Jiang regime. Not long ago, she spoke at a meeting of the UN Human Rights Commission. At present, she is in Austria, calling on people to pay attention to the systematic persecution, torture and killing of Falun Gong practitioners.
Just like the 100 million other practitioners in over 50 countries, Dai also cultivates the peaceful practice of Falun Gong. Apart from the exercises, the most important aspect is assimilating to the principles of “Truth, Compassion and Tolerance”. Since 1999, Falun Gong practitioners have been brutally persecuted in China, the birthplace of Falun Gong. Falun Gong followers claim that over 1000 practitioners have been tortured to death, and over 100,000 sent to labour camps.
The Indisputable facts
Mr. Heinz Patzelt from Amnesty International in Austria said that he could not provide the exact number of Falun Gong practitioners who have been tortured to death. He also said that AI doesn’t distinguish whether those who die are Falun Gong members or not. Mr. Patzelt also said that “The persecution of Falun Gong is systematic and most brutal. This is an indisputable fact.”
Zhizhen Dai explained further: “What this political regime is frightened of is people believing in Falun Gong rather than their political system”. She herself has said that she has found the answers to life. In the early nineties she emigrated to Australia. But because she did not find answers in the ‘West’, she again moved back to Southern China.
Her husband, Yongcheng Chen went to appeal for Falun Dafa, which has been public for the past 12 years. Ms. Dai said that Yongcheng Chen was arrested, tortured and brutally “brainwashed” from time to time. January 2001 was the last time that he was arrested. Because the authorities refused Australian citizen Zhizhen Dai’s application for an extension of her visa, she had to leave China with her daughter. Afterwards, she could not make contact with her husband.
Peace
It wasn’t until six months later that someone found out about her husband’s corpse and this is how she learned of his death. When Ms. Dai’s sister-in-law went to confirm the cause of death, she also was arrested. The Australian media reported this, but Ms. Dai had to wait for 8 months to get her husband’s ashes.
Ms. Dai said that Vienna is very beautiful and peaceful. When she saw the practitioners who practise the Falun Gong exercises on Hero Square every morning, she felt that she was also in a world of peace and harmony.
Zhizhen Dai said that sometimes she just wants to forget. Nobody can blame her for this, but she says: “I cannot excuse myself, as I know thousands upon thousands of people cannot speak out in China”.
Translated from Chinese at http://www.yuanming.net/articles/200305/20775.html
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