Members of the students union at Trinity College Dublin were among the most vocal protesters when Chinese premier Zhu Rongji came to the capital last week.
The crowd gathered outside Dublin Castle repeatedly chanted for the release of Zhao Ming, a Trinity postgraduate student who has been detained without trial in a Chinese labour camp for the last 16 months. The 30-year-old computer-science student was arrested during a visit to his home in China last year, because of his membership of the outlawed Falun Gong movement.
The union has been actively seeking his release. Last year TCD students marched on the Chinese embassy in Dublin.
Zhu Rongji said Falun Gong was "an evil cult", but that he would ask judicial authorities in China to look into the case.
The students union's president, Averil Power, said last week that its members welcomed "the Taoiseach's intervention in Zhao Ming's case, which led to the Chinese premier's statement that he will look into Ming's situation on his return to China.
"Trinity students union, the graduate students union and the Friends of Zhao Ming campaign have worked to highlight his plight.
"We are glad that the government used the opportunity of the visit to raise Ming's case and discuss Irish concerns about human-rights violations in China. We hope that Ming's case will remain at the top of the agenda in future dealings between the Irish and Chinese governments until he is permitted to return to Dublin to complete his studies."
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