Letter from Zhao Ming to the Prime Minister of Iceland

Ming Zhao
Computer Science Department
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland

30 August 2002

My name is Zhao Ming. I am a postgraduate student doing a Master’s Degree in Computer Science at Trinity College Dublin of Ireland. I am writing this letter to you in hoping that my personal experience of being persecuted as a Falun Gong practitioner can give you another angle in considering having a dialogue with Falun Gong practitioners.

At the end of 1999, I returned from Dublin to China for Christmas holiday. During the holiday, I went to the Central State Appeals Office to appeal for Falun Gong, because I had been practicing and benefiting from Falun Gong for years but China’s government banned it in July 1999. However the police arrested me for this very legal and peaceful appeal and confiscated my passport. So I failed to get back to Ireland to continue my studies. I was escorted back to my home city and released there. But in May 2000, I was arrested again when I was visiting my friend, a Ph.D. student, in his dormitory. This time, I was put in the labour camp and was kept there for altogether 22 months before being released in March this year.

In the labour camp in a Beijing suburb I was tortured badly by the police guards with torture methods including deprivation of sleep, beating, forcing to squat for long hours, and electric shocking. 10 inmates who were dictated by the police guards in the camp once beat me together, which made my thighs black all over with bruises and made me unable to walk for two weeks after that. 2 weeks before I was released, I was shocked with 6 electric batons by 5 policemen while being tied up on a bed board. In a period of two weeks, I was forced to squat for over 10 hours a day and only allowed to rest on a small bench for 1 to 2 hours per day, which made my lower legs and feet still suffer from a lack of feeling now.

Due to the effort made by the Irish Premier, the Irish Foreign Minister, Amnesty International, UN Human Rights High Commissioner Ms. Mary Robinson and some Members of European Parliament, I was released and returned to Ireland in March this year. I have resumed my studies in Trinity College Dublin now. And I have been using all my spare time to disclose this evil persecution happening in China to the western world and ask for people’s help to stop this persecution.

In June, when Chinese President Jiang Zemin visited Iceland, I flew to Reykjavik to protest against the persecution dictated by Jiang. As a student I could not afford the flight ticket. Fellow practitioners funded my trip. I went to Reykjavik because I wanted to show to Jiang Zemin that righteous belief will never be changed and that righteous voice will never be suppressed. I also went to Reykjavik for the sake of the Icelandic people. I wanted to disclose the evilness of Jiang to the Icelandic people.

What I experienced in China was not a rare case done by individual policemen but a common situation that is happening all over China done by the police systematically under the order of Jiang Zemin. Early this year he issued the “kill without mercy” order. Jiang is the ultimate one to be responsible for all this persecution.

This time Jiang’s regime is not driving tanks onto Tiananmen Square or killing people with automatic weapons like 1989. But this persecution of Falun Gong practitioners is actually very brutal, vicious and on a larger scale. All the practitioners in China, that are in the number of 100 million, are deprived of their rights of belief, assembly, and even of life and freedom. Including their family members, the suffering people are in very huge number. Now the number of practitioners tortured to death known by us is 462, and it is increasing every week. The total number is believed to be much bigger, which will be no less than that of 1989 Tiananmen massacre. I also learned that my good friend and schoolmate Mr Jiang Yuan was among them. He was tortured to death last year in his home city Gansu Province. A month ago I learned that my friend Mr Chengtao Lin was tortured into losing his sanity by electric shocking, who is still in the labour camp that I was in.

After experiencing those atrocities personally, I would say that the on-going persecution of Falun Gong is really inhumane and completely evil. What the persecutors would achieve in doing all the tortures is only to pressure the practitioners to renounce their belief in Falun Gong. If any practitioner was successfully forced to renounce Falun Gong by torture, which was actually against his/her true will, they would feel very contented and then they would find a TV journalist to record his renouncing and show it to the whole country through China Central TV. In CCTV news there are such programs regularly shown to justify the persecution. But actually those are all fabricated to cheat the mass people of the whole country. What the persecutors are doing is actually violating the Chinese law as well.

In addition, Jiang zemin is trying to extend this persecution to worldwide. It’s using the same tricks of cheating to coax western government leaders into limiting Falun Gong practitioners’ freedom of speech and assembly in those countries. You may not be able to imagine that a government leader of a big country can be that base and shameless. But it is true. It is not a rational person that has a normal mind. The 3 years history has sufficiently proved that we are peaceful people; we are not a threat to anybody, any government. We have been doing nothing violent despite of all the tortures and killings that we have endured. There is not any reason that can justify such treatment of innocent people. The only reason for this persecution is that Jiang Zemin is evil!

So in June this year, I was really shocked when I learned that your government were barring peaceful Falun Gong practitioners from entering Iceland, while welcoming this murderer whose hands are full of the blood of Chinese people. In 1989 after the Tiananmen massacre, all western countries were condemning the actions of the Chinese government and stopped communicating with those Chinese government leaders. Actually Jiang got his position because of his support of the massacre. In recent years, Jiang has been elected by human rights organizations as the No. 1 ruffian in the world in violating Human Rights. The crackdown and brutal persecution of Falun Gong was completely dictated by him.

I believe such behaviour of you, a leader of a country that has been famous for its democracy and low crime rate, was done because of being cheated by Jiang’s regime and not knowing the truth. Now it is a great time to rethink the whole thing and repair the damage. You know, this is also the will of Icelandic people.

Mr. Prime Minister, this is really a serious matter. Please do not go on with this not repaired any more, which would damage the reputation of you and your country.