Jennifer Zeng (born October 19, 1966) is a
Chinese
Chinese can refer to:
* Something related to China
* Chinese people, people of Chinese nationality, citizenship, and/or ethnicity
**''Zhonghua minzu'', the supra-ethnic concept of the Chinese nation
** List of ethnic groups in China, people of va ...
-born
human rights activist and author, best known for her practice of
Falun Gong, the subsequent
government suppression of the movement, and the book she wrote about her experience regarding Falun Gong: ''Witnessing History: One Chinese Woman's Fight for Freedom and Falun Gong''. Zeng is a TV host for
New Tang Dynasty Television and a contributor to
The Epoch Times.
Falun Gong
She became a practitioner of Falun Gong in 1997. Later, when the
government of the People's Republic of China began to arrest people involved with the group, she was among them. She was in fact arrested four times, and sent to a
labor camp
A labor camp (or labour camp, see spelling differences) or work camp is a detention facility where inmates are forced to engage in penal labor as a form of punishment. Labor camps have many common aspects with slavery and with prisons (especi ...
, the Beijing Municipal Women's Re-Education-Through-Labor Camp. Zeng relates that at the camp she was physically and mentally abused, subject to attempted
brainwashing
Brainwashing (also known as mind control, menticide, coercive persuasion, thought control, thought reform, and forced re-education) is the concept that the human mind can be altered or controlled by certain psychological techniques. Brainwash ...
and even faced
electroshock torture.
[''Contemporary Authors Online'', Gale, 2009. Reproduced in ''Biography Resource Center''. Farmington Hills, Mich: Gale, 2009. http://galenet.galegroup.com/servlet/BioRC]
Asylum and activism
In 2001, she fled to
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...
. Her daughter later followed her there for her own safety. Since arriving in Australia, she has spoken out about the Australian government's lack of protection of practitioners there, alleging that the government does not wish to insult or anger Mainland China. A specific instance which she recounted to the
Australian Broadcasting Corporation involves how an official of the Mainland Chinese government once walked out of the Chinese embassy in
Canberra
Canberra ( )
is the capital city of Australia. Founded following the federation of the colonies of Australia as the seat of government for the new nation, it is Australia's largest inland city and the eighth-largest city overall. The ci ...
and slapped a female Falun Gong practitioner on the face. The women responded that, in Australia, she had the right to be there and to continue practicing Falun Gong. The official responded saying that he was a Chinese diplomat. As such, no one particularly cared what he did, because Australia could not do much to him.
She published her book ''Witnessing History'' in 2005. The book describes the difficulties she has faced in practicing Falun Gong in Mainland China, and even since she left Mainland China. The book has been described by a reviewer in the ''
Midwest Book Review'' as "a necessarily harsh assault on a nation that does not respect human rights", and by June Sawyers in ''
Booklist'' as "an often harrowing, powerful reminder of what can happen when government power runs unchecked".
[
She currently lives in the US, where she has resided since 2011.]
References
External links
Speech delivered at Free Speech Society, Copenhagen, Denmark, November 4, 2007
{{DEFAULTSORT:Zeng, Jennifer
1966 births
Living people
Australian autobiographers
Chinese emigrants to Australia
Chinese human rights activists
Chinese prisoners and detainees
Chinese refugees
Falun Gong practitioners
Peking University alumni
Writers from Sydney
Prisoners and detainees of the People's Republic of China
Writers from Sichuan
People's Republic of China emigrants to the United States