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Friday, October 31, 2008

Hearing Monday to decide fate of Vancouver Falun Gong protest site

News Alert

Hearing Monday to decide fate of Falun Gong protest site

Hearing scheduled for seven days in BC Supreme Court

Vancouver-Resolution of the long-standing dispute between the City of Vancouver and Falun Gong practitioners concerning the Falun Gong protest display before the Chinese Consulate-General may be imminent.


Structures publicizing the persecution of Falun Gong in China by the Chinese government were first erected in 2001 and have remained there to the present day.


The Falun Gong practitioners argue that the City’s attempt to remove their structures and banners constitutes a violation of their freedom of speech under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The City argues that the structures encroach on City property and this constitutes a violation of a City by-law regulating streets and sidewalks.


After several court hearings over the past two years involving procedural issues, the court will finally hear argument on the merits of the case beginning on Monday. The hearing is set down for seven days in British Columbia Supreme Court.


Counsel for Falun Gong have cross-examined several City officials and on Wednesday they cross examined Mayor Sam Sullivan. Transcripts of these cross-examinations will be addressed in the upcoming hearing.


Falun Dafa Association of Vancouver

Contact: Clive Ansley, Counsel for Falun Dafa Association of Vancouver Tel: (250) 792-3547; Fax: (250) 338-0902; Website: www.ansleyandcompany.com

CBC: Stop Blaming Falun Gong

MWC: I was appalled and saddened to see the show “Malaise dans le Chinatown: Enquete” which was aired on Radio-Canada Oct. 30, 2008. To my surprise, it painted a rather grim picture of a well-respected, benign group which is currently being persecuted by the Chinese Communist Regime for their beliefs.

The nine-year illegal and extremely brutal persecution of Falun Gong in China has been well documented by the UN, Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights organizations worldwide.

However, Radio-Canada's misleading program failed to portray the intensity and injustice of this persecution. Instead, it was biased and sought to embrace the classic scenario of portraying the victim as the real villain while the perpetrator (the Chinese communist regime) becomes the hero. This message came out loud and clear from beginning to end.

It is honestly distressful that Radio-Canada would resort to such journalistic manipulation. By implying that Falun Gong practitioners are liars and troublemakers, this show will actually have the effect of causing damage to the Falun Gong community. They already have to contend with constant interference by the Chinese consulates and the embassy in Ottawa spreading hate and misinformation against them in Chinese communities across the country. They don't need Canada's national broadcaster adding to their problems.

Around the world, it’s a common sight to see groups of practitioners appeal for an end to the persecution in countries/cities where they can exercise their free speech and peacefully raise awareness of the brutal treatment of their counterparts in China. They also hope to stop the vilification of Falun Gong by pro-communist groups overseas—groups who are following orders from the Chinese consulates and embassies as revealed by a number of defectors during the past few years.

Judging by the narrow scope of Radio-Canada’s program, a bit of background on Falun Gong of the Buddha School is necessary, as there appears to be a missing link in their “expose.”

Falun Gong is an ancient spiritual discipline based on the values of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance that includes gentle exercises and meditation. It was widely accepted in China before the persecution was launched in 1999. Because of its popularity, the then- leader of China, Jiang Zemin, declared that the Chinese Communist Party had to overcome Falun Gong and promptly launched a campaign of violence against the group.

For the past nine years this illegal persecution of Falun Gong has continued unabated. UN Special Rapporteur Manfred Nowak stated in his 2007 report that Falun Gong practitioners accounted for 66 percent of victims of alleged torture while in government custody. U.S. State Department annual reports indicate that Falun Gong practitioners constitute at least half of the 250,000 officially recorded inmates in reeducation-through-labor camps in China while the real number could be even higher.

Unfortunately this poor showing by Radio-Canada is not an isolated incident. We all remember how Peter Rowe’s documentary ‘Beyond the Red Wall’ was pulled by CBC three hours before show time after intervention by the Chinese embassy. The documentary was subsequently carefully doctored to hide the most damning evidence of the illicit harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners' organs by the regime in China.

CBC lost some credibility by that action by kowtowing to a foreign regime. Radio Canada is now provided with an opportunity to regain some of that credibility and show some integrity by not broadcasting this documentary in the future and presenting the real facts instead.

Marie Beaulieu

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Cork Student Asks Taoiseach to Help Rescue His Mother in China

By Gearoid O'Conchuir
Epoch Times Staff
Oct 21, 2008
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Taoiseach Brian Cowen TD speaking at the Fianna Fáil Europe Rally in Cork (fiannafail.ie)

Liang Tang 21, is a food science student studying in Cork City University. When he returned to China last June his mother was arrested for distributing copies of The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. Mr Tang has urged Taoiseach Brian Cowen to ask for his mother’s release when he visits China this week.

The Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party are an award winning series of articles authored by the Epoch Times that expose the dark past, up to the present of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). They expose a series of facts that most ordinary Chinese people have never heard. The Commentaries are illegal in China and distributing them can lead to severe punishment.

Tang Liang's parents were caught by the authorities distributing the Commentaries on June 16th 2008. His mother and father were both arrested but his father has been subsequently released. Both of Mr Tangs parents are Falun Gong practitioners.

Mr Tang explains, "It was on the evening of June 16th 2008. My parents were seen by a plain clothes police officer when they were distributing a DVD of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party. They were arrested and detained.

"Since then none of my relatives have seen my mother. My mother's lawyer has seen her once, but now even he is not allowed to see her.

"According to the detention centre staff, my mother has collapsed due to high blood pressure. My family wanted my mother's Attorney to see her at the detention centre but were refused. They don’t allow anyone to see my mother."

Since arriving in Ireland Mr Tang has become aware that the Irish Government has a history of raising individual cases of Falun Gong practitioners who are being persecuted in China.

In 2002 Trinity College student Zhao Ming was released from a labour camp in China and allowed to return to his studies in Ireland. The Irish government, the former President of Ireland Mary Robinson and the provost of Trinity College all raised the issue with the Chinese authorities and eventually won Ming’s release. In 2004 Dun Laoghaire student Liu Feng was released from a labour camp after a similar high profile campaign and he too was allowed to return to Ireland.

Zhao Ming who has finished his degree in Trinity and is now a spokes person for the Irish Falun Gong Association said, “We believe if the Taoiseach intervenes on Aiqin Wang’s behalf the mother can be released and Tang Liang can continue his studies without worrying about his mother."

Distributing the Nine Commentaries


Ming explained why Falun Gong practitioners are distributing the Nine Commentaries when they face the risk of detention and even torture, “Over the years we [Falun Gong practitioners] have been trying to clarify we are not what the communist party said. We have found it difficult to convince the Chinese people because they believe what the CCP said is correct. So we resorted to telling the truth more thoroughly and telling people the real history and nature of the communist party.”

Falun Gong was banned in China in 1999 after its popularity frightened the CCP. At the time one hundred million people in China practiced Falun Gong. Since then the CCP has used all the media in China to demonise the practice.

Ming said, “We are Falun Gong practitioners, the core principles of the practice are Truth, Compassion, Tolerance, we do not accept the persecution but we don’t use any violent methods to try and stop it. So the best way of stopping the persecution is to let people know the true nature of the Communist regime and they will thus not believe them anymore. This series of articles has factually started to dissolve this regime.”

Ming said that he believes the Irish government can successfully win the release of Mr Tang’s mother if the issue is raised to the Chinese Premier.

Organ harvesting


Ming also said that he hopes the Irish government will raise the issue of organ harvesting of living Falun Gong practitioners with the Chinese premier. To date a number of independent reports have been published on the issue leaving a number of questions that need to be answered by the CCP.

In 2006 and 2007 the UN raised this issue to the CCP and the most basic question is yet to be answered. Why was there a surge in organs available for transplant between 1999 and 2007?

The former member of Canadian government David Kilgour who presented his report on Organ Harvesting to the Irish government in 2006 recently said in a Canadian newspaper called The Diplomat that he believes beyond any doubt that not only did organ harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners take place in China, it is still occurring today.
Ming who also believes organ harvesting is taking place said, “This should be top of the agenda. It must be stopped.”

Family's struggle over visa continues

Falun Gong practitioner to keep pushing China on behalf of her parents
TU: By PAUL GRONDAHL, Staff writer
First published in print: Wednesday, October 22, 2008
ALBANY — Jubilant that her mother was freed recently after six months of detention in China for being a member of the Falun Gong sect, Hongyuan "Annie" Li won't stop until her parents are granted a U.S. visa.


"You know why," a clerk told her parents as they were denied a visa application last week in Lanzhou City, where the couple live.

The visa denial is part of an ongoing persecution of Falun Gong members by Chinese communist authorities because the sect does not bend to party orthodoxy, according to Li, 36, a freelance financial writer whose husband, Chiewseng Koay, works for IBM's nanotechnology operation at the University at Albany.

Li's mother, Shizhen Qin, 67, a retired library science professor, was arrested in March and confined to a "brainwash center," according to her daughter. There, Qin was deprived of sleep and harshly interrogated in an attempt by authorities to get her to renounce her beliefs in the sect's meditation and exercises meant to enliven mind, body and spirit.

Li, of Albany, spoke to her mother briefly recently and she sounded fine, but she would not discuss details of her detainment and seemed very nervous. Li suspected her mother's phone was bugged.

Qin took up the Falun Gong regimen in 1995 to combat diabetes and high blood pressure and it improved those conditions, she said, although her husband, a retired finance professor, is not a Falun Gong follower. Li is a practitioner and praises its health benefits.

Li waged a campaign that included rallies at the state Capitol, visits to lawmakers in Washington and letters to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to expose China's human rights abuses and to win the release of her mother. She vowed to return to those tactics to try to secure a visa for her parents.

"I'll do everything I can to bring them here," she said, adding that State Department and Congressional officials have promised assistance. "I feel hopeful."

Paul Grondahl can be reached at 454-5623 or by e-mail at pgrondahl@timesunion.com.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Auckland City Councillor Objects to Falun Dafa Parade Ban

By Charlotte Cuthbertson
Epoch Times Auckland Staff
Oct 16, 2008
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Falun Dafa's Divine Land marching band during the Wellington Santa Parade in 2007. (falundafa.org.nz)
Falun Dafa's marching band was denied entry into the Auckland Santa Parade on Tuesday for the sixth year despite six Auckland City Councillors urging organisers to include them.

Cathy Casey, one of the Councillors to write a letter to Santa Parade Board Chairman and Auckland's Chamber of Commerce chief executive, Michael Barnett, said she was “very disappointed” and suggested political and trade motivations with China were behind the decision.

“It is a political objection, they might call it something else, but I'm in no doubt about it. From the correspondence in the past I've had with Michael Barnett is that he sees the Falun Dafa organisation as political and some threat to China and trade relationships between China and New Zealand. And I think he gets all his hats mixed up. He gets his Santa hat mixed up with his Chamber of Commerce hat.

The letter of denial sent to the 60-piece marching band's applicants doubled as a media statement from the Auckland Children’s Christmas Parade Trust released 15 Oct. and said, in part: “We are not prepared to have this family occasion hijacked by other organisations and their agendas.”

Ms. Casey said the letter was “quite rude” and failed to take into account Falun Dafa's successful entry in both the Wellington and Panmure parades last year.

“The marching band was there [at Panmure] and they were just another attraction. There is no hidden agenda here. This is simply to allow Falun Dafa to participate the same as we allow every other Chinese group in the city to participate, and there wasn't just one, there was at least half a dozen.

“So, I am not impressed as one of the governors of Auckland City to learn they've been turned down again,” she said. A day earlier, the marching band was accepted into Wellington's Santa parade, “If Michael Barnett does not know who this group is he should be speaking to them directly, not taking advice from the Chinese Embassy's website or whatever it is that he's looking for his information.”

The Auckland City Councillors have not decided what their next action will be. Michael Barnett is currently overseas and members of the organising team refused to comment on the decision.

Falun Dafa is a spiritual practise that has been persecuted in China by the ruling Chinese Communist Party for nine years.

Pro-Communist Group Stirs More Violence in Flushing

Pro-Communist Group Stirs More Violence in Flushing

By Wei Junyu, Zhong Tao
Epoch Times Staff
Oct 16, 2008
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The woman shouts, “I don’t want to live anymore.” (The Epoch Times)
CCP Incites Flushing Violence

FLUSHING, New York City—A pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) group launched a further attack on volunteers in Flushing on Oct. 12., marking five months of violence allegedly backed by the Chinese Embassy. Volunteers, largely Falun Gong practitioners, run a service center near Golden Market on Main Street, Flushing for Chinese people wanting to renounce their affiliation to the communist regime.

Pro-communist media was present at the latest attack, also suggesting the attack, like others, was premeditated and organised. According to eye witnesses, local Chinese acted out in a violent fashion toward Falun Gong practitioners, then lied to police in an attempt to blame the practitioners for the fracas.

Earlier in the day someone had warned volunteers at the Quit the CCP Service Center that pro-communist Chinese were going to hire phony witnesses to frame Falun Gong practitioners.

The woman stood up to attack a Falun Gong practitioner. (The Epoch Times)
One witness named Liu Shubing said, “I left the library and came to Golden Market at around 3:30pm and I saw a woman in a wheelchair cursing in the street. She cursed and bullied a lady from one end of the street to the other.”

Liu continued, “The wheelchair-bound woman shouted, ‘I’m not going to live much longer anyway and I don’t want to live anymore. I’m not afraid of anything. You just go ahead and call the police. If you have the nerve to call the police, just go ahead. I’m not scared. Go ahead! Go ahead! Go ahead!’”

The woman in the wheelchair had frequented Main Street often to curse Falun Gong practitioners at the Service Center and on Sunday she was seen harassing and attacking Falun Gong practitioners for about an hour.

Wheelchair-Bound Woman Stands up to Turn over the Table

Falun Gong practitioner Zhang Derong was chased and cursed by the wheelchair-bound woman. She said that the woman, “has been showing up to harass Falun Gong practitioners since May 17, 2008. She has been using very foul language to insult practitioners. She acted up whenever she saw me and she follows me everywhere I go.”

Video footage shows that the wheelchair-bound woman cursed and threw materials from the table to the ground several times, then stood up and turned over the table as she cursed obscene words.

Ms. Zhang said that the woman and another male accomplice were very cruel. “The two of them attacked me from the front and behind, hitting me with our materials, so I had to retreat back. Another man came from my behind and attempted to strike me. I was not hurt because I was quick enough to avoid his attack.”

Flushing Democratic District Leader Flores Also Attacked


Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP on Main Street, Flushing, New York. (The Epoch Times)
A similar incident also happened to Flushing Democratic District Leader Martha Flores-Vazquez on October 4. Ms. Flores-Vazquez held a community forum in Flushing on Oct. 7. to publicize the incident.

Some pro-communist Chinese thought District Leader Flores was a Falun Gong practitioner when she was in Flushing on Oct. 4 and they immediately started cursing her and accusing her of turning over their table.

The pro-communist Chinese later claimed that it was a misunderstanding because they had mistaken her for a Falun Gong practitioner, to which Ms. Flores-Vazquez responded, “Would you have the right to treat me this way if I were a Falun Gong practitioner?”

Thorn in the CCP's Side

Flushing Democratic District Leader Martha Flores-Vazquez. (The Epoch Times)
David Gao, the director for the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, told the Epoch Times that October is the National Grievance Month. The CCP celebrates its anniversary in China during the month of October. He said an increased number of people have withdrawn from the CCP through the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP in Flushing.

So far the Epoch Times reported that close to 45 million have withdrawn from the CCP. Recently, the tables set up by the local service center for quitting the CCP on Main Street, Flushing, have also received more requests from people wanting to quit the CCP.

He said the service is a thorn in the side of the CCP and the attacks in Flushing show that the CCP is getting weaker and helpless. The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP has not only increased service sites in the metropolitan New York area but also in different areas around the world. Gao says that the CCP is destined to collapse.

Read original Chinese article here.

Last Updated
Oct 16, 2008