Letter from Zhao Ming to the Prime Minister of Iceland

Computer Science Department
Trinity College Dublin
Ireland

30 August 2002

Mr. Dav Oddsson,
The Prime Minister of Iceland
Stjornarradshusinu vid Laekjartorg
150 Reykjavik
Iceland

Dear Prime Minister,

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 hopes 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 the Christmas holidays. 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 could not 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 methods including deprivation of sleep, beating, being forced to squat for long hours, and electric shocks. Ten inmates who were under orders 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. Two weeks before I was released, I was shocked with 6 electric batons by 5 policemen while 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 even 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. And I have been using all my spare time to disclose this evil persecution happening in China to the western world and to 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 perpetrated 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 a righteous belief will never be changed and that a righteous voice will never be suppressed. I also went to Reykjavik for the sake of the Icelandic people. I wanted to disclose the evil of Jiang to the Icelandic people.

What I experienced in China was not a rare case carried out 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 a "kill without mercy" order for practitioners caught putting up Falun Gong flyers. Jiang is ultimately responsible for all of this persecution.

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

After experiencing those atrocities personally, I would say that the on-going persecution of Falun Gong is really inhuman and completely evil. What the persecutors would achieve through all the torture 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 Chinese Central TV. In CCTV news there are such programs regularly shown to justify the persecution. But actually those are all fabricated to deceive the general population of the whole country. What the persecutors are doing is actually violating the Chinese laws as well.

In addition, Jiang Zemin is trying to extend this persecution worldwide. He is using the same tricks of deception 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. He is not a rational person that has a normal mind. The 3 years history has sufficiently proven that we are peaceful people; we are not a threat to anybody or any government. We have been done nothing violent despite all the torture and killing 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 of this year, I was really shocked when I learned that your government was barring peaceful Falun Gong practitioners from entering Iceland, while welcoming this murderer whose hands are stained with the blood of the 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. In fact, Jiang got his position because of his support of the massacre. In recent years, Jiang was named by human rights organizations as the worst in the world in violating human rights. The crackdown and brutal persecution of Falun Gong was completely dictated by him.

I believe that you, a leader of a country that has been famous for its democracy and low crime rate, were deceived by Jiang's regime and did not know the truth. Now it is a great time to rethink the whole thing and repair the damage. As 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 longer, as it would damage the reputation of you and your country.

Sincerely Yours,

Ming Zhao

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