(Clearwisdom.net)

The Falun Dafa Information Center issued a report on March 26 about Zhao Ming, a Falun Dafa practitioner and student at the Computer Science Department of Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland. He was illegally sentenced to two years of forced labor because he practiced Falun Dafa. When they heard that Zhao Ming was detained in a forced labor camp, the students, professors, the (Provost) Professor John Hegarty, and the "Friends of Zhao Ming" decided to do whatever they could to rescue him. They conducted a widespread campaign to collect signatures. Over and over, they called the government of Ireland, the government of the United Kingdom, the European Parliament, many governments of European countries, Amnesty International, the United Nation Human Rights Chief Officer Mrs. Mary Robinson, and many others. All were asked many times to request that the Chinese government respect human rights, release Zhao Ming, and allow him to go back to Ireland to continue his studies.

During the whole rescue effort, Lord Moyne [a parliament member of the UK], who learned about Falun Dafa because of the Zhao Ming incident, played a very important role. Lord Moyne told everyone that he read the book Zhuan Falun very carefully, and that he thought Falun Dafa was "totally apolitical." He said that the principles of Falun Dafa, "Truth-Compassion-Forbearance," should be recognized by anyone, as they are the universal values of mankind. They are what Falun Dafa emphasizes. Therefore, he thinks that everyone should support Falun Dafa.

Because of the widespread calls for justice from international society, the Chinese government released Zhao Ming on March 12, 2002. On March 23, Zhao Ming came back to Ireland where he will continue his studies in pursuit of a master's degree in computer science.

The Falun Dafa Information Center interviewed Zhao Ming yesterday over the phone about what he endured for the past two years. All those who cared about him and helped to rescue him have been greatly concerned about what he went through.

Arrested When He Legally Appealed, Endured Inhuman Force-Feeding in the Detention Center.

Question: You were studying for your Masters degree at Ireland's Trinity College. How did you come to be arrested in China and forced to do 2 years of hard labor?

Zhao Ming: I went back to China during the 1999 Christmas break. During my vacation, I went to appeal to the Central Government Appeals Office in Yongdingmen, Beijing. At that time, the police sent everyone away who went there to appeal for Falun Gong. I was sent back to my home in Changchun City, Jilin Province. My family picked me up. However, the police held my passport, so I could not come back to Ireland to continue my studies.

In March 2000, I went back to Beijing again. This time I was arrested with several other practitioners when we were together in someone's home. The arrest did not follow any legal procedure. The police did not wear uniforms. They did not show their IDs or any warrant. They simply grabbed us and put us into an unmarked vehicle. We were sent to the Haidian District Detention Center in Beijing, and I was sentenced to forced labor after this arrest.

Question: When were you transferred from the detention center to the labor camp?

Zhao Ming: There was a one-month's time between the arrest and I was finally sent to the Tuanhe Labor Camp. I was locked up in the Haidian Detention Center in Beijing, the Daguang Detention Center in Changchun, the Drug Addict Education Center, and the No.7 Detention Center in Beijing. During this time, I kept telling them that I did nothing illegal, and that they should not arrest me. I went on a hunger strike to ask to be released because I was innocent. They force-fed me.

Question: Could you describe how they force-fed you?

Zhao Ming: I started a hunger strike after being detained in the Haidian Detention Center for one week to ask for my release because I am innocent. On the second day of my hunger strike, they force-fed me. They held me down and grabbed my nose tightly. I tried to hold my breath, but they used toothbrushes to pry open my mouth. They poured liquid food directly down my throat. I was held down very tightly. Sometimes, the liquid food went down my esophagus and windpipe at the same time, choking me badly. My lungs were in severe pain. This kind of force-feeding is very dangerous. I spoke with a Falun Dafa practitioner in the same labor camp, whose practitioner wife, Mei Yulan, was killed during force-feeding at another Detention Center.

When I was detained in the No.7 Detention Center in Beijing, I continued the hunger strike. The director of the medical office force-fed me through my nose. He pulled the tube in and out constantly. His deliberate cruelty caused a lot of blood to flow from my nose. He even pushed the tube into my windpipe intentionally. I immediately had difficulty breathing. He said, "Because you made me mad, I will choke you to death." After being force-fed, I could not stop vomiting. I vomited out only a little liquid that went into my stomach, but it smelled like strong medicine. A huge amount of drugs had been added to my food, and it hurt my stomach a great deal. I was sent to the labor camp after being tortured in the No.7 Detention Center. I started eating in the labor camp.

Exposing the Truth About the So-Called "Favorable Treatment of Forced Labor Camp Prisoners"

Question: The Chinese government invited an international news agency to visit Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp in Beijing, and this news agency produced a report, stating that the conditions inside the labor camp are very good and the prisoners are well treated. Can you please talk about what you have witnessed in Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp?

Zhao Ming: Some news reporters came to Tuanhe Forced Labor Camp to conduct interviews. Many work unit representatives from society as well had visited the forced labor camp. Inside the walls of the camp, chickens, rabbits and deer, fed by people from the labor camp, were running around everywhere. On the surface, the conditions look good, but appearances are deceiving -- one cannot tell how the police authorities persecute inmates by looking at things superficially.

When news reporters came to interview inmates or when work unit representatives came to visit, there were prisoners exercising in the courtyard and others who were working. However, these were all people who were already brainwashed or people acting according to the government's requirements. Steadfast Dafa practitioners and some others were forced to watch videos inside a lock-down room and could not leave this room until all the news reporters had left. Once when three brainwashed people were interviewed, the interviewees praised the labor camp and were subsequently rewarded with several months of sentence reduction.

Secret Tortures in the Labor Camp

Question: Were you detained together with other practitioners in the camp?

Zhao Ming: At the very beginning I was locked in the same cell with a dozen thieves and burglars. Later, because more Falun Gong practitioners were incarcerated, they separated us into groups and locked us up by ourselves.

Question: How did the criminals treat you?

Zhao Ming: When I first got to the camp I was deprived of normal sleep. The police officers talked to me all the time and told me not to practice Falun Dafa anymore. Once, a dozen criminals who were in the same cell with me severely beat me. They forced me to squat and beat me with folding stools if I was not able to squat any more. The torture and beating lasted over two hours. On the second day they pushed me inside a basin and stuffed me under a bed. When the bed boards rose naturally due to my body below, they intentionally sat on the bed boards and pushed down as hard as they could, which resulted in widespread blood clots in both of my legs. As a result, I could not walk for a long time.

Question: Why would they beat you like this? Why did they dare to beat you so?

Zhao Ming: At that time I was new at Tuanhe Labor Camp, and it was impossible for me to have made so many enemies. They had no reason to beat me. According to the labor camp's rules and regulations, such beating is a very serious violation, and these criminals should receive term extensions or be locked up in solitary confinement. However, none of them were punished. On the contrary, some of the perpetrators even received sentence reductions and were released early. Later, after I had been with them for a while, they told me that they didn't want to beat me, but the police authorities had ordered them to do so.

Question: Did the labor camp guards beat you?

Zhao Ming: The guards mainly hit me with electric batons. Last year, when my one-year term was about to expire, they transferred me to Beijing Xingan Female Forced Labor Camp, where the adolescent education team consisted of male prisoners. I was detained there for more than two weeks, during which time I was not allowed to sleep and could only take a one-to-two-hour daily naps while sitting up. I also suffered physical punishments, such as forced squatting and "Riding an Airplane" among other tortures.

[Note: In this torture, the head is bent down until it cannot go down any further, the neck and the back are against the wall, while the hands are pulled up and held up to the highest point. The hips have to point up. One is forced to keep this position unchanged for a long time. The body in this position looks like the shape of an airplane, which is how this torture is named]

Furthermore, two weeks before my term would expire, the police authorities didn't allow me to sleep for two nights in a row. In the daytime I met the deputy director of the labor camp and asked to talk to him. I wanted to let him know about how the officers didn't allow me to sleep, but he ignored me.

During the following night, five police officers attacked me with electric batons. They put a bed board on the floor and tied my whole body, including my four limbs and my head, tightly to this bed board. Then they hit me with six electric batons simultaneously. My body went into violent spasms, and my breathing became labored. The kind of the electric baton they used is about 50 cm [about 19.7 in] long with two electrodes on top. There is also some kind of spiral-shaped metal coil along the baton, which enables it to strike a wide area of the body. The five police officers who participated in this beating included the Administration Section Chief, the Education Section Chief, the Deputy Chief of Education Section, and two police officers in charge of "the class of storming the determined." The Administration Section Chief said this was my punishment for trying to tell the truth to the camp director.

Question: What is "the class of storming the determined?"

Zhao Ming: "The class of storming the determined" was created especially for the purpose of "treating" the determined Falun Gong practitioners who refuse to be brainwashed. Right now, all practitioners whose terms are about to expire and still refuse to be "reformed" are sent into "the class of storming the determined." It is located in the old West Building. After the new building was built, that became an empty building. Our practitioners were put into single rooms. At the beginning, they sent people to talk to us, but later they mainly used violence to try to "reform" the practitioners.

The Forced Labor Camp's Completely Isolated Brainwashing Class Focused on Destroying One's Mental State

Question: What did the police usually ask you to do in the labor camp?

Zhao Ming: The biggest persecution in the labor camp is the brainwashing. They published many books, audio and videotapes, many so-called "news items" and so on. I do not want to say their contents aloud. They forced Falun Gong practitioners to watch and listen to these all day and talk about them. They just wanted the practitioners to acknowledge that cultivation is like what they said. To get the desired results, they did not allow practitioners to sleep or used physical punishment like electric shocks.

Once for more than a month, they forced practitioners including myself to sit on a small plastic stool for 15 consecutive hours every day and listen to recordings that attacked Falun Dafa. They did not allow us to move except to eat and go to the bathroom. They even limited the times that we could go to the bathroom. When I would go to bed, my upper body and hips were in so much pain. It is extremely painful for the human body to maintain any one position for such a long period of time.

Question: When did the labor camp tell you that your sentence had been extended for another ten months?

Zhao Ming: They suddenly informed me on the day before my original sentence was over that my sentence was extended for another ten months. I was really shocked mentally.

Question: Did they provide any explanation?

Zhao Ming: Two weeks before they informed me of this, they sent me to Xingan Female Labor Camp. After they brutally tortured me, they asked me to write a guarantee to quit practicing Falun Gong. I refused. They asked me to read an article that slandered Falun Dafa with several other people who were not practitioners. I refused. They said that because I would not read, and because I talked about Falun Gong with others in the labor camp, they extended my sentence.

Question:  Did your parents in Changchun know that your sentence had been extended?

Zhao Ming: They did not know.

Question: In these two years, what do you think the most painful thing was?

Zhao Ming: I did not violate any law, yet I lost my freedom and could not read the Fa or practice the exercises. Dafa teaches people to cultivate "Truth, Compassion, Forbearance." Not being able to practice such a good way was the most painful thing for me.

Question: During the time that you were detained, your schoolmates and teachers at Dublin Trinity College, Ireland spontaneously formed the "Friends of Zhao Ming" organization to rescue you and caused great international attention. Did you know about this at the labor camp?

Zhao Ming: I did not know anything. I just found out about this after coming back to Ireland. In the labor camp, they just forced you to watch the brainwashing material and would not let you get any information that you were interested in. They made you feel very lonely. No one cared about you, as if no one would know if you were beaten to death. They just used this method to attack your mind and wear down your will. In the labor camp, I would have felt very encouraged had I known about the effort that the international society had made in order to rescue me. Actually, the labor camp, or I should say, the Jiang regime is very afraid that the people inside China know about these situations.

The "Mouth-Sealing" Talk Before Zhao Ming's Release

Question: When did you know that you would be released?

Zhao Ming: Not until the day before my release.

Question: What did the police say to you before your release?

Zhao Ming: The police were very nervous before my release. Usually before each person's release, the labor camp would have some officers from the Discipline Division talk to the person who is being released. They would ask whether or not the person has experienced torture. This is a routine in the labor camp. On the night before my release, they came to talk to me. I knew that it was useless talking to them and that the whole thing was just a formality, so I said I had nothing to say.

Question: Why is this just a formality?

Zhao Ming: About one week before my release, a police officer from the Labor Education Bureau came to talk to me, asking if I had anything to report. I asked him if he thought it was appropriate to shock me with electric batons. He said that shocking detainees with electric batons was violating the law, but soon he continued, "I don't think this is possible. Do you have any evidence? Were there any labor camp staff present? Or I would believe it if any police officer admits that he has shocked you with electric batons. If you think speaking out about such torture does no harm to you, i.e., if you are not afraid of being affected by this, you may talk and I will record what you say." His intention was very clear, that is, he knew about all of this. Maybe he was the one who directed the officers to torture me. When I was tortured, there were several police chiefs from different divisions present, so it must be that they had received orders from the top. You may report to the police that you were electrically shocked, but it would be very hard for you to collect evidence. If the police did not admit that they have tortured you, where can you find evidence? The police officers at different levels all know this, but they threaten you brazenly, which is really vicious.

It Isn't Wrong To Cultivate "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance"

Question: During the past two years, you have endured enormous torture, both physically and psychologically. What made you go through all these tortures and still retain such a peaceful state?

Zhao Ming: My firm belief in Dafa. It is not wrong to cultivate "Truthfulness-Benevolence-Forbearance." In the labor camps, practitioners have to bear enormous pressure. The camps attempt to use physical torture and mental brainwashing to force practitioners to renounce Dafa. However, coercion cannot change practitioners' will to cultivate Dafa.

The Voice Of Justice From the International Community Is Effective

Question: The international community and many people you do not know made great efforts to secure your release. Do you have anything to say about this?

Zhao Ming: I am very grateful for their support. My professors and classmates at Trinity College spent a huge amount of time and energy for my release. At the very beginning, it was very difficult. Their support is beyond my imagination. My deepest thanks go to them. Also I would like to thank Irish government, British government, Amnesty International and many other kindhearted people.

I feel very happy to be able to regain my freedom. I will try to recover soon so that I can help call for the release of other detained practitioners in China. I sincerely hope that the governments, international organizations and kindhearted people that have helped me will continue to pay attention to the urgent crisis in the city of Changchun, my hometown, and continue to call on the Chinese government to stop the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

Zhao Ming is an ordinary Chinese citizen who studies overseas. He is also a Falun Dafa practitioner. At present, the Jiang's regime is frenziedly attempting to suppress Dafa practitioners, especially in Changchun City, which was Zhao Ming's hometown and also the "birthplace" of Falun Dafa. In March alone, the government has kidnapped and arrested over 5,000 practitioners in Changchun. Everyday there are people who are tortured to death. Under such harsh circumstances, Zhao Ming was released and allowed to go abroad to continue his studies in Ireland. This was the result of the collective efforts of the international community and kindhearted people who paid great attention to Zhao Ming's case and continually sent out their voices of justice to the Chinese government.

Posting date: 4/3/2002
Original article date: 4/3/2002
Category: Eye Witness Accounts
Translated on 3/31/2002
Chinese version available at http://www.minghui.cc/mh/articles/2002/3/30/27518.html

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