Ireland: PLEASE RESCUE MY SISTER

Speech at the joint press conference of the International Human Rights Day
Outside of the Irish Parliament
Dublin
10 December 2002

54 years ago today, the United Nations proclaimed the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, in which Freedom of expression, peaceful assembly and religious belief were considered the fundamental rights of a human being.

3 years ago, my sister Dai Xialing went to Beijing to express her opinion on the ban of Falun Dafa by the Chinese authorities. However, she was arrested. Together, there was my other sister Dai Qiuxia, my brother Dai Xuejun and many other friends from my home town. They were soon sent back to my home town and detained in the police station for some days.

My two sisters and my brother were soon expelled by their workplaces because they refused to sign the documents to renounce Falun Dafa. They were constantly detained and threatened by the police. Qiuxia’s husband divorced her in fear of being affected by the persecution. My sister Qiuxia was living with her young daughter with no income, no social welfare but she still did a lot work to spread flyers to clarify the truth to the people locally.

I went back to China to visit my family and also to appeal for Falun Dafa. I met my sister Xialing in the temporary detention centre inside her old workplace although she was already expelled from there. You could imagine how we felt in such circumstances – one sister flew thousands of miles away to see another sister who was however detained. But we were all very solid as we believed that we were doing the most righteous thing in the world, we were defending the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance.

I left my hometown in the end of December 1999, and went to Beijing to appeal. I was arrested on Tiananmen Square on the first day of the new Millennium, 1 Jan 2000. I was detained for 4 days before I was ‘deported’ back to Ireland. That was my last time seeing my family, my country.

My sister Xialing together with other Falun Dafa practitioners spent all her money and time spreading the truth, and finally in the end of Dec 2000, she had to escape from my home town because the police was searching her and wanting to send her to the labour camp. She bravely jumped out from a third floor and injured her waist. Luckily enough, a neighbour helped her to get away by taking a taxi, she then began her 8 month in exile before she was finally sent to the labour camp where my other sister Qiuxia had been since the end of Dec 2000. It was August 2001.

I have never been able to make direct contact with either of the sisters inside the labour camp. I was told both sisters were suffering from the forceful brainwashing. Qiuxia was released in September 2002, but Xialing is still subjected to the pain of being there.

My mother was 73 when she died in October 2001, a few days after her birthday. We lost our father in September 1998. My mother went through all the pains on her own – seeing her children being arrested, beaten, expelled, divorced and finally sent to labour camps. My mother was a traditional Chinese lady, her husband and her children were the core and all of her life. It was simply too much for her to endure. She died with much pain in her heart – she didn’t have chance to see the two sisters in the labour camp, and me also – I wasn’t allowed to go back to China, my motherland.

Xialing is only one of the millions of Falun Dafa practitioners who have been subjected to the extraordinary persecution in China. My family’s tragedy is only a tiny portion of the massive persecution against the peaceful practice of Falun Dafa and the practitioners.

There is an ancient Chinese saying: One righteousness subdues a hundred evils. Your righteousness, justice, and compassion are needed for my sister, my family, this world and yourself.

Thank you.

Dai Dongxue