CHINA: Calls in Dublin for the arrest of the visiting Chinese vice premier Mr Huang Ju have gone unreported in China.
Those seeking his arrest claim that Mr Ju is implicated in torture against Falun Gong practitioners at home. They say it is hard to overstate just how much the Communist Party despises the Falun Gong. The Chinese media have not reported on Falun Gong since the 1999 crackdown, other than to condemn it as an evil cult.
Falun Gong, which claims to have 100,000 million followers worldwide to its name, is a sore point for the ruling Communist Party and in many ways more problematic than the Dalai Lama in Tibet or Xinjiang separatism.
The Irish activists who defend Falun Gong are not alone in their tactics. Last week, Falun Gong practitioners called on the Canadian government to prosecute former Communist Party leader Mr Jiang Zemin for crimes against humanity for his crackdown on the group, claiming 1,100 of their fellow practitioners have died in custody. Practitioners in 22 different countries have filed similar civil suits against Mr Jiang for alleged illegal detention, torture and murder, while Amnesty International has pleaded their case internationally for human rights abuses.
When a top Chinese official travels abroad now, the Falun Gong attempt to demonstrate in some way or other, but often they are kept out of sight or held behind police cordons out of harm's way.
Falun Gong, of Wheel of Law, is a spiritual movement that draws on Buddhism and Taoism. Practitioners believe that illnesses are the result of bad karmas, and by becoming a practitioner, a falun (or wheel of chakra) is installed into his or her stomach which eventually eliminates all that is bad. Although it was initially welcomed by the Chinese government, the movement is now outlawed.