Reconsider Falun Dafa Month in Port Alberni

Westcoaster.ca (Editor’s note: The following is an open letter to Port Alberni’s mayor and council following Monday night’s regular meeting.)

I learned from reading the Westcoaster.ca this morning that the City of Alberni has refused to award a proclamation honouring ‘May as Falun Dafa month’ after receiving a visit from the Chinese consulate in March along with a letter urging the council not to issue the proclamation.

This is very distressing as Port Alberni has signed proclamations for the past several years.

Unfortunately, it is common knowledge that the Chinese Consulate carries their hatred for the quasi-religious Falun Gong group in their mission abroad in the form of propaganda.

Perpetual harassment in the Falun Gong activities has become 'business as usual' and the Beijing bosses expect all Canadian officials to toe the harsh party line.

In a normal situation, these communist officials should be expelled for abusing their political power and going beyond their mandate by harassing Canadians in their own country. Openly reminding them of these factors sounds like the right thing to do.

The propaganda phase of the regime’s war began in mid-1999 against a then estimated 70-100 million Falun Gong practitioners across China. The party-state media demonized, vilified and dehumanized them in a manner somewhat similar to that used by the government of Rwanda against its Tutsi community prior to the genocide there in April-July, 1994. Both nationals and some outside China were thus persuaded to think of the community as disruptive to social harmony and even somehow less than human. This is called the Big Lie tactic.

It's not too late for the City of Port Alberni to reconsider awarding the Proclamation for Falun Dafa Month.

Whether it's close to the end of May or not is irrelevant. But what really matters is the principle.

Marie Beaulieu
Falun Dafa Association - BC Chapter