Epoch Times: Vancouver’s Bid to Stifle Protest Raises Questions;Mayor mixing business with bylaw enforcement, group says
By Joan Delaney Epoch Times Victoria Staff
17 - 23 August 22006 - The City of Vancouver filed a petition Friday seeking a court order to remove the Falun Gong protest display from in front of the Chinese Consulate on Granville St. The city says structures comprising the display—posters erected on the consulate fence and a meditation hut by the sidewalk—contravene a city bylaw.
Deputy City Engineer Peter Judd said that when the protest first started, city officials assumed that it would peter out eventually like most other protests tend to do.
“We don’t want to be heavy-handed in these situations, but here we are five years later and it’s very clear they’re not going anywhere, so it’s time to take the structures down and move on.”
Since August 2001, Falun Gong practitioners have maintained a 24/7 vigil outside the consulate to raise awareness about what they say is a genocide against the group in China. The “blue wall” along the consulate fence consists of posters calling for an end to the persecution, depictions of torture methods used in China’s labour camps and pictures of slain practitioners.
Judd says it’s irrelevant that the structures are not blocking the sidewalk; the group doesn’t have written permission and the display is “not attractive, it’s not the kind of public realm people want.” Mayor Sam Sullivan said in June that the site violated a city bylaw and should be removed.
Motive in Question
But Sue Zhang of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada (FDAC) says the group was initially given verbal approval for the display which was acceptable to the city at the time. She says the real reason has more to do with economic interest and pressure from the consulate than with the violation of a bylaw, as it was soon after B.C. signed a trade agreement with China in May that Mayor Sullivan first announced the appeal site had to go.
“We believe this is no longer an issue of non-compliance with a bylaw,” says Zhang. “Rather, we believe that the law has been misused in an attempt to silence righteousness and justice. We sincerely ask that Mayor Sullivan withdraw the petition without delay.”
A May 24 Canadian Press report stated, “The agreement has been signed with Invest Beijing, which has close ties to the mayor’s office as well as regional governments.”
The Falun Dafa Association of Canada says that many cities in Canada and around the world with similar displays outside consulates and embassies have had pressure from Chinese authorities. The cities of Toronto and Ottawa have both been asked to remove the protest sites, which FDAC believes are an embarrassment to Beijing.
When the City of Ottawa Transportation Committee received a request from officials at the Chinese Embassy to remove the protest site across from the embassy in 2002, the committee stood its ground and allowed the display to remain.
“I took it as a question of free speech that since they were not being disruptive, threatening, or causing a safety concern we ought not to shut it down,” says Ottawa City Councillor Jacques Legendre. “In fact, the committee felt that way as well, and we refused to acquiesce to the embassy’s request.”
Legendre says there needs to be a “public policy, a rationale, for banning such things,” and in this case there wasn’t any because the practitioners are “most respectful” and the site doesn’t create a safety hazard.
“The perception of this ongoing demonstration or presence is one that has been very passive, extremely so,” says Legendre. “It’s atypical of demonstrations in Ottawa to be so tranquil.”
Atrocities Persist
Vancouver practitioners say their site bears witness to the thousands who have been tortured and murdered since the persecution began. The group has vowed to continue the vigil until the persecution comes to an end. A meditation practice that swept China in the nineties, the communist regime outlawed Falun Gong in 1999, concerned that it had grown too popular and was a threat to the atheistic ideology of the state. At around 70 million, Falun Gong had more practitioners at the time than there were members in the communist party.
FDAC spokesperson Sophia Bronwen worries that China will use this action by the city in its comprehensive defamation campaign against Falun Gong, and will tout the removal of the display as tacit support for the persecution.
“This act is not neutral; on the contrary, it could be harmful to the practitioners who are suffering so severely in China. By taking the site away the mayor is reducing our voice, he’s saying it’s not important.”
Bronwen says she’s surprised that a report by David Matas and David Kilgour confirming the widespread harvesting of the organs of Falun Gong practitioners in China “didn’t awaken Mayor Sullivan’s conscience.”
The report found that in the seven years since China outlawed Falun Gong and began imprisoning thousands of its adherents, a steep rise occurred in the number of organ transplants performed in that country. In all, there were 41,500 transplants that couldn’t be accounted for; Kilgour and Matas believe incarcerated Falun Gong practitioners were killed to supply the organs for those tranasplants.
Toronto practitioner Joel Chipkar says he feels for those living in Vancouver who have been tortured in the persecution, some of whom have family members in labour camps and brainwashing centres. He says if the display is removed, they will lose an important venue to raise awareness about the “ongoing atrocities” in China.
“I would say to Mayor Sullivan and the City of Vancouver that our family and friends are being slaughtered,” says Chipkar. “If something like this was happening to you, or if your family members were being tortured and murdered, we would never tell you that five years of protest is enough, and now you have to move on.”
Mansour Sedighi, who volunteers an overnight shift once a week at the round-the-clock protest, says Falun Gong doesn’t want to fight with the city over the bylaw, as the practice “teaches respect for all the laws in society.” But he believes Mayor Sullivan should look at this as an opportunity to support the group and be a “strong voice for human rights, something Canadian people value.”
“He should be proud that there are people who will stand up for justice, stand up for human morality and stand up for stopping such a brutal and unjust persecution in a peaceful and safe manner,” says Sedighi.
Related Articles:
The Province: Protest site must go, city tells court
Globe and Mail: Falun Gong protesters oppose injunction; Group says bylaw shouldn't apply to them
24 Hours Vancouver: Sullivan still plans to oust protesters
CBC: Falun Gong protests city's bid to remove wall
24 Hours: Falun Gong to maintain ongoing vigil
Chinese Consulate Protest Display Must Go, Says Vancouver Mayor
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