A man left languishing in a Chinese prison for seven years as punishment for speaking up for the plight of the Communist country?s underclass will tell his story to Bermudians this week.

One message Ching ?Joseph? Shi wants to drive home is how influence exerted by governments and pressure groups such as Amnesty International can make a tangible difference to changing things for the better even when they are up against the most hostile regimes.

Mr. Shi still finds it hard to understand how his imprisonment became a cause for concern to the outside world and led to the improvement of his conditions behind bars.

But in 1991, a year after being sentenced to eight years in jail for supporting the Tiananmen Square student protest, the barely human treatment he suffered during his incarceration stopped and he was afforded the simple rights of other ordinary prisoners when ordinary people spoke out.

As a prisoner of conscience, he had been denied any visitors and was not allowed money from friends outside to buy food to supplement the meagre prison rations.

Later he was given those normal prisoner rights, however.

All the 42-year-old knows is that word of his imprisonment somehow reached beyond China?s borders and his welfare became of interest in the US State Department.

It brought some small relief from the otherwise relentless hardship behind bars, it was enough to make imprisonment at least bearable.

Having experienced the benefit of outside influence bearing down on Chinese authorities during his own prison ordeal, Mr. Shi wants to encourage others to play a part ? however minor it might appear ? to benefit the lives of others.

He has accepted an invitation from Amnesty International Bermuda to visit the Island and give the Colin Horsfield Lecture, speaking about human rights violations and repression in China, at the Wesley Methodist Church Hall in Church Street, Hamilton, this Thursday.

His story starts in the mid-1980s when Mr. Shi was labelled a counter-revolutionary because of his views on inequality in China.

?There are three classes in China, the top are the officials and their families, then the city workers and the lowest class are those living in the countryside ? the people born to be slaves,? Mr. Shi told .

?But those in the countryside make up 80 percent of the population. I was born in the countryside. I was the top student at school but when I wanted to go to university, I was told I had to get much higher marks than those from the city.?

Mr. Shi spoke out against the unfairness and the corruption even though he was not against communism.

?I formed a group called ?The Pioneer? and we published an underground newsletter to educate people that citizens should be equal and that corruption is not equal,? he explained.

The 1989 Tiananmen Square student protests and subsequent clampdown brought Mr. Shi into direct conflict with the authorities however, as he was continuing to rally support for the students? calls for democracy.

He was arrested along with 20 associates. Four eventually went to court, two were imprisoned, Mr. Shi being given the longest sentence of eight years.

During the first year, and particularly the first month, he experienced torture, sleep deprivation and constant questioning.

His rights were denied and his hard labour as a prisoner included working with dangerous chemicals without proper protection.

But a year later things changed.

Mr. Shi said: ?The US State Department made enquiries about my case and asked for me to be released. What happened was that my conditions improved. At that moment I did not know why anyone should be showing concern for me, I was just an ordinary person from the countryside.

?I did not realise the US Government could help me, but I suppose some human rights? group got involved.

Mr. Shi managed to ?earn? extra food by offering to teach English to the children of prison guards. In 1996 he pleaded guilty to the charge of being a counter-revolutionary in order to win himself a year off from his sentence.

Once released, he could not find work. He was tied to the local police station where he had to report once a month.

Eventually he ran away to a large city, but even there Police tracked him down and made it hard for him to keep a job.

His escape finally came when he walked through Burma (Myanmar) to reach Thailand and sought out the UN High Commission for Refugees. He stayed for two and a half years working as a translator for UNHCR and then applied to emigrate to Canada.

Together with wife Christina, he now lives in Vancouver but feels Chinese spies are keeping tabs on him and his speeches.

Mr. Shi said: ?I want to tell people that expressing concern about China and its human rights? violations is a very powerful thing to do.?

Lucy Attride-Stirling, Director of Amnesty International Bermuda, would like as many people as possible to come and hear Mr. Shi speak at an open forum at 7.30 p.m. on Thursday.

She said: ?We are trying to bring pressure on China from the International Olympic Committee to improve its human rights. To hold the Olympics in China in 2008 is a mockery to the movement?s ideals if there are human rights? violations still occurring in that country.?

All are welcome to attend Thursday?s lecture. Amnesty International Bermuda can be contacted on 296-3249.