Chinese Democracy

Zhao Ming, who lives in Dublin and works as a freelance computer programmer, can’t return to China, his native country. “Not now, not now,” he says calmly.

Born in 1971, Zhao came to Dublin in March 1999 to begin a postgraduate course in computer science at Trinity College. His studies were dramatically interrupted when he was imprisoned, without trial, 12 months later – while on holidays back in China – for petitioning against the suppression of Falun Gong.
When Zhao began practising Falun Gong in 1994, it transformed his life. Growing up in Chang Chun in north-east China, the son of a professor, he had been a sickly child; always prey to whatever colds were going around, he suffered from lethargy and a poor digestive system. By exercising and meditating for an hour every day, Falun Gong “immediately” helped sort out his sleep and dietary problems.
Falun Gong, often described as a cousin of yoga and T’ai Chi, blends traditional Chinese health exercises with Taoism, Buddhism and the ideas of its founder, Li Hongzhi, who also lives in exile in the United States. Although it has no political agenda (indeed it has no central organisation) and it doesn’t fundraise, Falun Gong was outlawed and labelled an “evil cult” by the Chinese government in 1999. At the time, it had 70 million people practicing its teachings in China. But in a nationwide sweep many of its senior practitioners, including Zhao, were put into labour camps alongside other ordinary criminals. No information was given to their families of their whereabouts.
While in prison, Zhao was subjected to sleep deprivation, torture – sometimes he would be handcuffed and outstretched on a bed for a month – and beatings. The police used electric batons to pound him and other fellow prisoners with, although they would get other detainees to do a lot of their dirty work.
“I was once beaten up by 10 inmates in the labour camp,” he says. “They were very strong and they were very violent. They said later to me that the police told them to do so. They didn’t know me. I offended none of them, you know?”
Many brainwashing techniques were used on Zhao to recant and give up his spiritual beliefs. He would be forced to watch government videos. The slightest twitch or lapse in concentration would lead to blows raining down on him.
By chance, his older brother, who lived in Beijing and had been combing the city’s labour camps, met a policeman coming off duty who mentioned he knew of Zhao. A campaign began for his release. His case was highlighted in Ireland a lot by fellow students, too. In fact, Bertie Ahern raised it with the Chinese premier, Li Lan-Qing, during his visit to Dublin in April 2000.
Although his original sentence was one year, it was prolonged by another 10 months before he was finally released. Zhao, who has a serene disposition, looks healthy, but his eyes are hooded and jaded looking. He says he feels numb in his feet all the time because of nerve damage caused during the labour camp beatings. It was only afterwards that he discovered his upper body was saved from the worst of the beatings in the event that his organs could be harvested for sale.
He is, though, lucky to be alive. There is verification of 3,000 Falun Gong practitioners who have been killed.
“I have found six cases that I know,” Zhao reveals. “They are my college mates and fellows in prison with me... and they were tortured to death.”
These include a friend’s spouse; a chief engineer in an IT company; a doctor in a Beijing hospital as well as a bank worker in the city; a university lecturer; and a peasant who was imprisoned with him.
Although Zhao says that the climate for agitating for Falun Gong practitioners’ release is improving – for instance, he points out, lawyers are representing Falun Gong prisoners today, which wasn’t the case several years ago – it’s unknown how many of them are still incarcerated.
“The numbers are in the hundreds of thousands. The whole country’s prison facilities and police are doing nothing else. For example, when I was imprisoned, in male prisons, if there were a thousand prisoners, about 300 were Falun practitioners. In the female labour camps, more than 90% were Falun practitioners. They just tell other prisoners: ‘Go home.’
“The governing regime is doing nothing to maintain a normal way of life, to maintain justice. Their judicial system, their police system are doing nothing to maintain justice, they are only a tool of the Communist Party to suppress dissidents. They can tell all the other prisoners to go home overnight and they can put all dissidents in prison overnight without any trial. That’s the communist system.”
For more information on Falun Gong, visit www.clearwisdom.net