Minister Eamon Gilmore told the Dáil on Tuesday that his department has made inquiries into the case of Ms Gu Qing-ai, a Falun Gong practitioner who was recently illegally detained in China. The government has asked a human rights group that works with the EU to investigate the case.
Mr Gilmore said, “We have informed our Embassy in Beijing of the case of Ms Gu Qing-ai, and Embassy officials are raising Ms Gu’s case with the human rights group that co-ordinates the EU position on these issues with China.”
“We will continue to monitor developments in this case,” he added.
Ms Gu Qing-ai was detained in Weihai City in China on June 10th. Her daughter, Cui Tianzeng, is an official resident of Ireland who lives in Dublin.
A press release from Ms Cui stated that China’s Public Security Agency had told the family that her mother had been detained in Weihai Detention Centre. Worryingly, however, none of her family has so far been permitted to visit her.
Ms Cui said her mother was detained because she had distributed materials about the human rights abuses committed against Falun Gong practitioners in China by the Chinese communist regime. Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a traditional Chinese cultivation practice based on the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance. It has been brutally persecuted by the Chinese regime since 1999.
According to the New York-based Falun Dafa Information Centre, Falun Gong practitioners are the largest group of prisoners of conscience in the world, numbering in the hundreds of thousands at any given time.
The Centre explains the reason for the persecution as follows: “One basic explanation for the seemingly irrational campaign is the proclivities of China’s atheist Communist Party (the CCP), which fears all groups outside its control – particularly ones that subscribe to a different ideology.”
Minister Gilmore said that the EU has raised the issue of the denial of Falun Gong practitioner’s basic human rights as recently as May of this year. He said: “At the most recent session of the EU-China human rights dialogue on May 29th, the EU again raised the issue of restrictions on Falun Gong practitioners. At this meeting, the EU also presented the Chinese side with a list of individual cases of concern, including those of several detained Falun Gong practitioners.”
The Irish government has previously raised the cases of Dublin students Liu Feng and Zhao Ming, both of whom were subsequently released and permitted to return to Ireland to continue their studies.
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