Foreign Influence Behind Vancouver Parade Snub, Says China Watcher

Several men form a human barrier to prevent the Falun Gong from marching a block behind the 2009 Chinatown parade. The group's application to join the parade has been denied every year since 2003 while other groups have been accepted.

Liu says Jang is playing a key role in perpetuating discrimination against the Falun Gong overseas by consenting to Party directives though his close relationship with the regime. He believes Jang belongs to those the CCP has seduced through exclusive invitations to events from high ranking members of the Party.

Jang is the perfect target for Beijing. Aside from his role at the CBA, he holds honorary positions at several Chinese official institutions with links to the Party. He is also chair of the Chinese Cultural Centre of Greater Vancouver and the Shon Yee Benevolent Association—organizations that are also on the preparatory committee for the Chinese New Year parade.

“On the issue of Falun Gong’s application for the Chinatown parade, Jang is aware how he should serve,” says Liu.

More at Epoch Times

Shen Yun: Explosion of colour and flying acrobatics

Chinese performing arts group Shen Yun dazzles with gravity-defying choreography

The MIT Tech - Ziwei Hao - ‎Review: Founded in 2006, the Shen Yun troupe is associated with the Falun Gong, a spiritual practice based on Buddhist and Taoist teachings. Almost all of its members practice Falun Gong. The name Shen Yun directly translates to “the beauty of divine beings dancing.” Through dance and song, the group hopes to “revive the spirit of traditional Chinese culture,” according to their website.

Shen Yun dazzled its audience in its opening act. The first dance told the Buddhist legends of creation from the highest heavens down to the dusty plateaus of the Middle Kingdom. Female dancers dressed as golden flying apsaras floated across the stage, ushering in wushu acrobats dressed as deities in red armor. The dancers signaled the opening of the Heavenly Gates, displayed on a large CGI screen that stretched across the back of the stage. The animated backdrop showed these divine beings ascending to the heavens...

One of the most striking features was Shen Yun’s hundreds of colorful costumes. Each garment and headdress was hand-made and tailored to match themes of the dynasties and ethnic groups represented by the dances. More

The 2011 tour marks the group’s fifth season. Shen Yun will be performing in Vancouver, Canada April 1-3 at the Queen Elizabeth Theatre. Details are on facebook

Experts Discuss the Internet and the End of Dictatorship

Alan Huang, an expert with the Global Internet Freedom Consortium (GIFC), said, "The mission of GIFC is to use technology to expose the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and to promote freedom of the Internet. The anti-censorship software developed by Falun Gong practitioners is popular worldwide. It is the most widely used and the most powerful for breaking the censorship among all anti-censorship software. The software is used by the netizens in mainland China. There are one million clicks from China, two million page views, and more than one million netizens from China breaking the CCP’s firewall every day."

Mr. Zhang Zengjun, a senior network engineer with Google, said that Internet operators are unwilling to cooperate with authoritarian regimes, because web censorship requires much manpower and resources, and the speed of the Internet will be slowed. And there is the risk that, as a business, a company might be closed down because of the censorship. More at Epoch Times

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Chinese Authorities Illegally Sentenced 550+ Falun Gong Practitioners in 2010

“We have given a lot of cases to the UN Special Rapporteur, and they have always sternly condemned the Chinese Communist Party hiding behind the law to persecute Falun Gong” said Chen Shizhong, Falun Gong Human Rights Working Group Spokesman.

The Chinese regime continues to violate its own laws in its persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual practice, according to overseas rights groups. The Minghui website provides a platform for Falun Gong practitioners to give accounts of the persecution.

More at NTDTV

The Rule of Law and China's Recent Assault on Lawyers

The Chinese government has tried to break Tang Jitian's spirit. Failing, it now seeks to break his body. Tang, a Chinese human rights lawyer, was forcibly abducted from his home on Wednesday, February 16 by the Beijing police.

Human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng likely serves as the most potent reminder of the lawlessness of the PSBBut as Gao Zhisheng took on more controversial cases -- particularly defending Falun Gong practitioners, a quasi-religious organization that the Chinese government perceives as a real threat to its power -- government respect for his work quickly faded.

The Obama Administration needs to publicly condemn the Chinese government's recent suppression of human rights lawyers, call for the release of Tang Jitian, and frankly question the Chinese government's commitment to a rule of law. Tang and Jiang's safety depends on it.

More at Huffington Post Blog

Falun Gong not responsible for fake Chinese regime's Jasmine Revolution

ET: Yang Sen, the president of the U.S. Midwest Falun Dafa Association, commented on media reports that Falun Gong practitioners were responsible. “We are people who cultivate ourselves according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance,” Yang said. “We do not get involved in politics or matters in the secular world. We have no attitude in this matter. The development of this event is strange. My personal opinion is that it is likely to be initiated by the Chinese Communist Party, with the purpose of further persecuting anyone it considers a threat.”

An article published by Aboluowang, a Chinese-language website based outside of China, analyzed the event and concluded that this Jasmine Revolution was very likely a trap. The CCP wanted to use a fake call for protests to arrest the most bold and courageous Chinese, the article said. This would help prevent protests from being organized in the future and scare people away from participating, according to the article.

Shi said that the anti-authoritarian trend in Middle East has scared the CCP a great deal, which fears seeing the domino effect of the disintegration of dictatorships coming to China. He believes that pro-CCP media reported on the aborted protests on Sunday in such a way as to put fear in people’s minds. More at Epoch Times

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Greens to China: Stop Interfering in Australian affairs and Shen Yun Performing Arts

SYDNEY—An Australian promoter of a Chinese cultural performance has confirmed that the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China had sent letters to Sydney dignitaries in an effort to stop them seeing the performance.

Universal Cultural Communications, the co-presenter of the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company, said the notice slandered the show and the spiritual discipline of Falun Dafa, which is presented in contemporary scenes in the show.

Letters were also sent in an attempt to discourage schools from bringing school groups to see Shen Yun.

Ian Cohen, New South Wales MLC for the Greens, said he had seen Shen Yun a number of times.

“In fact, I have been somewhat uplifted every time by the grandeur. It’s an experience that should be shared by all people, particularly young people.”

“We don’t accept any country dictating control over cultural activities under any circumstances.”

More at Epoch Times

Jiang regrets crackdown on Falun Gong?

If this statement is true, then why hasn't Jiang Zemin stopped the persecution of Falun Gong yet? Ahem. Don't hold your breath anyone cuz the truth is, who can take a dictator's word at face value, except for the poor people they keep on brainwashing and then some.

NYPost wrote: The Belgrade bombing is one of "two regrets" in Jiang's memoir, said Qiansao. The other is his decision to stage a crackdown on the Falun Gong meditation group.

Chinese journalists believe the magazine's account of the memoirs is authentic, pointing to previous instances when high-level documents or memoirs have first appeared as leaks in Hong Kong.

More at NY Post

Crackdown to stop pro-democracy rallies in China

FEARFUL THE wave of change sweeping across North Africa and the Middle East could undermine the position of the Communist Party, Chinese security forces took to the streets of 13 major cities yesterday to squash any displays of dissent after a mysterious online call for a “Jasmine Revolution”, inspired by pro-democracy demonstrations elsewhere.

The original online posting on the US-based Boxun website, which has since been blocked, consisted of a list of grievances about contemporary China.

It listed food-safety problems, laid off workers, corruption by officials and their children, the treatment of the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement, brutality against petitioners and those forced to move homes because of real estate development.

“In 1989, June 4th was an attempt to readjust society in a just way to recover the dream, but it failed, and it would be much more difficult to have another try now,” said a computer expert. “This government is waiting for the old generation who remember Mao Zedong to die, and then they can do what they like.” More at Irish Times

VOA’s China Broadcast Cut Not a Budget Matter, Says Congressman

‘Anti-freedom’ propaganda advances as freedom propaganda recedes

Whether (the cut is) the product of a backdoor deal or not, the implications bother Mr. Rohrabacher: “They are still suppressing religious believers,” he said, “whether it’s the Falun Gong or the Muslims, or Tibet with the Buddhists out there.” The people who live under a regime of that sort need ready access to the news America provides, he said

It’s a horrible situation when you have a dictatorship like that in Beijing dramatically increasing its communications budget with the rest of the world, expanding its propaganda campaign, greatly spending much more money on trying to create a false image of itself, while at the same time in the United States we are pulling back, spending less resources,” Mr. Rohrabacher said.

“What it says is that America is in retreat and in fact we should be saying that freedom is on the move and the people who run China with an iron fist, their days are numbered,” he said. “How we do that of course is to make sure we’re on the side of the people of China, and now we can’t even tell them that.” More at Epoch Times

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Related Article:

US Congressman: Chinese Regime a ‘Gangster Regime’

Falun Gong's Popularity, Misconceptions, and the Persecution

Watch a video on 'Falun Gong Misconceptions' here and here and find out why hundreds of thousands peaceful people who live by the universal principle of Truth, Compassion and Tolerance are persecuted in China without mercy.

What I'd like to know is why this secret war--waged by the Chinese regime's communist party onto defenseless law-abiding citizens--allowed to go on like this for 12 years? Why are the world's governments and media mum on this issue? Why is Hu Jintao still talking about 'harmony and respect' to Western politicians while the Chinese Communist Party's killing of innocent people has escalated tenfold because of the systematic, state-sponsored persecution of Falun Gong? Isn't it the right of all human beings to be free from persecution if we are to preserve and harmonize humanity not only for the next generation but for this epoch? If so, there's a lot of work to be done.

Falun Gong is practiced by over 100 million people in over 100 countries.

China’s Intimidation of Dissidents Said to Persist After Prison

“I have come out of a small jail and walked into a bigger jail,” Mr. Chen, 39, a blind, self-educated lawyer, said in a homemade video that was smuggled out of his village last week. “What they are doing is thuggery.”

In recent decades, even as it tentatively embraced Western-style legal reforms, the Communist Party never completely shed its reliance on extralegal tactics to rein in critics. Former political prisoners could expect tightened confinement during important state occasions, and practitioners of Falun Gong, the banned spiritual movement, were regularly sent to labor camps if they refused to renounce their faith. Over the years, human rights advocates say that scores have died in detention.

Earlier this week, several journalists, including reporters and a photographer from The New York Times, were roughed up by a dozen or so men who menaced them with sticks and confiscated their camera chips. The men wore plain clothes and refused to show identification as they tried to erase photographs and video footage.

Asked what law authorized their actions, one of them grunted dismissively. “This has nothing to do with law,” he said. More at New York Times

Canadian cyberattack traced to China

Michel Juneau-Katsuya, a security analyst and former CSIS intelligence officer, told CBC News on Thursday "all indications point at China" as the origin of the attempted cyber espionage.

He added that any such attack would have some connection to the government in China, which is also known for producing so-called "patriotic hackers" devoted to targeting institutions or governments perceived as threatening to the government at home.

Juneau-Katsuya said he believed Canada is seen by China as "a land of opportunity to get natural resources that they need so, so much."

At least two departments, Finance and Treasury Board, and the DND agency, had been compromised the same way the China-based hackers behind GhostNet had penetrated more than 100 other governments around the world.

CNet reports that China was traced as the source behind the cyberattacks launched against Google and other companies in 2009 as a way of targeting human rights activists. Specifically, the USCC found that a Chinese state-run telecommunications provider had redirected traffic for U.S. military and corporate data in April.

More at CBC and CNet

Chinese Climbing `Great Firewall' to Facebook Doubles Users of Banned Site

The Great Firewall of China has helped the government block websites from the Falun Gong to Twitter Inc. for years in the world’s most censored Internet market. He Xin recently discovered how to bypass the restrictions. ...He uses UltraReach Internet Corp.’s free Ultrasurf, one of the growing number of so-called Virtual Private Network services used in the world’s biggest Internet market to circumvent censors....Last week, Facebook opened an office in Hong Kong, bringing the company closer to China, where Susquehanna International Group LLP estimates the online advertising market will triple to almost $13 billion by 2014. More at Bloomberg

Banyan: The wind that will not subside

Even in China, the government, ostensibly so confident of the correctness of the path it has chosen, has been wary of the memories events in Cairo might evoke, and of the hopes it might rekindle.

China’s secret police are good at nipping political movements in the bud. But they missed the rise of the Falun Gong sect as a nationwide anti-government force. And despite their firewalls and armies of “harmonising” censors they might struggle to contain a microblog, text-message or social-network revolution.

Their efforts to filter news from the Middle East were only partially successful. That may be why they find the news is so unsettling—because the Chinese people might see it not as a recollection of a nightmarish past, but as a vision of a hopeful future. More at The Economist

Taiwan: New alliance targeting CCP 'villains'

Although the alliance is based in Taipei, Teresa Chu, a spokesperson for the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group and an attorney, said its scope was global and “belongs to the Chinese people around the world and will exist till the day the CCP stops suppressing the human rights of people in China.”

The “No CCP Villain International Alliance” (www.noccpvillain.org), which comprises groups such as the Victims of Investment in China Association (VICA), the Taiwan Friends of Tibet and the Falun Gong Human Rights Lawyers Working Group, as well as human rights activists and individuals who were persecuted by Chinese authorities, has handed its list of 11,000 names to Democratic Progressive Party Legislator Chen Ting-fei, who is expected to pass it on to the National Immigration Agency (NIA) and the Mainland Affairs Council (MAC), the Epoch Times reported on Monday. More at Taipei Times

Related:

• US Congressman: Chinese Regime a ‘Gangster Regime’
• Taiwan Rights Groups Call for More Action on Mainland Human Right Abusers

Clinton Backs Facebook Freedom, Prods Regimes on Censorship but what about China?

Is this more lip service from Clinton? Yup....show them the money Hilary so that the anti-censorship techies can upgrade their network once and for all in order to block oppressive regimes effectively, especially China. The only reason why things are moving at a crawl pace is because DOS has been sitting on $25-30 million that should have been allocated to the global internet freedom companies a year ago. Whose side is DOS on again? Somebody, please tell them to wake up cuz this kind of behaviour is only benefiting dictators.

NPR wrote:

Senate Republicans complain in a new report that the State Department isn't financing Internet freedoms, at least when it comes to China. More

Business Week wrote: Today, Clinton noted that two billion people are online, nearly one-third of humankind, and said the U.S. supports the universal right of all people to gather and communicate online, the “freedom to connect” as she called it.

...Lugar, the ranking Republican on the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee, called on Clinton to transfer at least $8 million of available funds to the Broadcasting Board of Governors to focus on circumvention technology. The agency, which oversees government media including Voice of America, funneled a $1.5 million grant last year to the Global Internet Freedom Consortium, a group that provides anti-censorship software and is associated with the Falun Gong, a Buddhist spiritual sect banned in China.

While Clinton acknowledged that “some have criticized us for not pouring funding into a single technology,” she argued that the State Department is taking “a venture capital-style approach, supporting a portfolio of technologies, tools, and training.”

Clinton also asserted that there are costs to governments who try to open the Internet for business and close it for political or social expression.

More at Business Week

Related:

U.S. to lay out plans to support internet freedom -- leery of Falun Gong services?

Policy makers ignore those who know best the Chinese regime’s weakness--the Falun Gong

Former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin revealed documents showing how consulates in Australia and around the world cooperate and use front organizations to suppress dissident groups.

U.S. State Department Faces Egyptian-Style Failure Over China

Nieh says: “The persecution of Falun Gong (by the regime) in China tests the imagination and the character of State Department officials. The United States was founded by individuals fleeing religious persecution, and the Falun Gong issue should be very easy for Americans to understand. Yet in the face of such a huge atrocity, the State Department has chosen to meet with the torturers and the murderers, while refusing to meet with the victims."

Don't be fooled: ...The Xinhua correspondents who use friendship as a propaganda tool are obviously employees of the CCP. Heng says that in capitals around the world, the “friends” who approach government officials often have no obvious ties to the CCP.

Chen Yonglin, the former consul for political affairs for the Chinese Consulate in Sydney who defected in 2005, testified before the U.S. Senate that his consulate often used “friends” to deliver information to Australian government officials.

More at Epoch Times

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Canadian Spymaster Criticized by Alleged Beijing Front Organization

U.S. to lay out plans to support internet freedom -- leery of Falun Gong services?

There are other contradictions in the State Department’s agenda: it champions the free flow of information, except when it is in secret cables made public by WikiLeaks; it wants to help Chinese citizens circumvent their government’s internet firewall, but is leery of one of the most popular services for doing so, which is sponsored by Falun Gong, a religious group outlawed by Beijing...

Horowitz has organized demonstrations of the service for legislators, journalists and others. On Jan. 27, the day before the Egyptian government cut off access to the internet, he said there were more than 7.8 million page views by Egyptians on UltraSurf, one of two consumer services under the umbrella of the Global Internet Freedom Consortium. That was a huge increase from only 76,000 on Jan. 22.

The trouble, Horowitz said, is that UltraSurf and its sister service, Freegate, do not have enough capacity to handle sudden spikes in usage during political crises. That causes the speed to slow to a crawl, which discourages users. The companies need tens of millions of dollars to install an adequate network, he said. Under a previous government grant, the group received $1.5 million.

More at GuelphMercury.com

Shen Yun brings cultural extravaganza to Academy of Music

Five thousand years of history -- a culture rich in symbolism, myth and abiding values -- Shen Yun Performing Arts

Music that is sublime, and movement and dance that almost literally takes the breath away.

Shen Yun, an entertainment extravaganza with a cast of 100 performers that reveals the beauty and grandeur of the ancient Chinese heritage, will make a return appearance at Philadelphia's Academy of Music on Feb. 22 and 23.

The show, which has three performing troupes traveling the globe, has now dazzled 800,000 audience members around the world.

Presented by the Greater Philadelphia Asian Culture Center and the Greater Philadelphia Falun Dafa Association, the show has English narration, and also projects English translations of any Chinese lyrics on a digital animation backdrop.

"The real mission of Shen Yun is to revive traditional Chinese culture, along with the values that have been foundational to that ancient system," explains Kelly Wen, a master of ceremonies/narrator for the upcoming Philadelphia show. Wen, who has direct contact with audiences, prepares show-goers for the 20 vignettes which tell the stories, in song and dance, of some of the core principles presented in the show, from loyalty and compassion to truth and justice.

"There are Chinese instruments like the Erhu and Pipa, and the show is performed by talented artists from around the world," says Wen, who herself grew up with a passion for the performing arts, and is trained in classical Chinese dance.

She continues, "As an ethnic Chinese person growing up in the West, this show has given me a wonderful opportunity to rediscover my roots. Chinese dance is intertwined with the 5,000 years of traditional Chinese culture."

Cindy Wang, a spokeswoman for the Philadelphia Asian Culture Society, notes that the Shen Yun company, based in upstate New York, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to restoring the Chinese performing arts to the forms and disciplines that existed prior to the communist takeover of China.

"We not only present the legendary tales," says Wang, "we also address some important social issues in contemporary China."

Costumes are elaborate, handmade and hand-dyed to ensure that color quality is pure, according to Wang.

"Audiences always gasp at the beauty and complexity of the costumes and the sets."

Because the production values of Shen Yun also are extraordinary, with lavish sets and stage movement, families are encouraged to share the experience with children.

"My own daughter has been coming since she was 5 years old, and now she's 9 and still can't wait to see the show," says Wang.

But the real meaning of the production reaches beyond costumes and sets. "The character "shen' in Chinese means divine, and this show, we believe, has the power to elevate mind and spirit to higher realms," suggests Wen. "The show's message of hope really helps to promote important values and harmony, something we especially need in today's world." More at Courier Post

Falun Gong to US: We have the technology to fight internet censorship

Follow the Global Internet Freedom Consortium on Facebook

A US Senate committee report said the delays in allocating funding have “strengthened the hands of those governments, including China’s, who seek to restrict their citizens’ access to information.”

The report suggested the delays in allocating funding were partly because some of the most sophisticated ICCT software — DIT and UltraReach — was developed by two US companies founded by members of the Falun Gong, which is banned in China, to allow followers to break through the “Great Firewall.”

The report said DIT and -UltraReach have been used to circumvent Internet censorship in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Egypt, Myanmar and Vietnam — “countries which have looked to China for lessons in Internet control or to whom China has directly provided technologies to counter such products.”

Congress has given the State Department US$50 million for Internet freedom programs since -fiscal 2008, the report said, but US$30 million remains unspent and little has gone to ICCT.

More at Taipei Times

Related:

Digital Weapons help Falun Gong punch holes in China's Great Firewall

How Social Media Changed China's Internet Equation

New Challenges to Beijing's Control of the Internet

Shortly after christmas, New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof opened an account on Sina Weibo, a Chinese microblog service that, like Twitter, allows users to share short messages of up to 140 characters. Kristof began testing what topics would be censored. He found out quickly. One of his first messages was "Can we talk about Falun Gong?" - a reference to the spiritual movement banned by Beijing. Within an hour of his first post, Kristof's account was canceled.

More at Time.com

Falun Gong Parade Float Attacked in Mexico City

Falun Gong participate in the 2006 Columbus Day Parade in San Francisco.

Thugs serving Chinese embassy strip float bare

Watch this on YouTube video as taped by La Razon newspaper in Mexico.

As the three women in traditional Chinese outfits stood meditating, half a dozen thugs were tearing apart their golden Chinese New Year float behind them.

Practitioners of Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) in Mexico City's Chinatown face a difficult enough time owing to the control exerted in the area by the Chinese Embassy, but Feb. 5 was the first time the embassy had hired thugs to suppress them in broad daylight.

After the men finished tearing down the banners, cutting the slender ropes, bundling up the handmade lotus flowers, and balling up the anti-persecution messaging, they began carting it all off.

The thugs, who witnesses said were transported in vans belonging to the government of Mexico City's Cuahutemoc District, struck on Independence Street, next to Chinatown...
More at Epoch Times

Related:

Indonesia's Falun Gong Tolerated But Not Legal

China’s Boom: Fueled By Spies?

by Peter Worthington: In 2005 when he was leader of the Opposition, Stephen Harper quoted CSIS sources as saying Chinese industrial espionage was costing Canada $1 billion a month.

He blamed Paul Martin’s government for ignoring the problem.

Last year, around the time of the G8 and G20 meetings, CSIS Director Richard Fadden walked into hot water when he said the Chinese wielded undue influence with some Canadian politicians.

He quickly back-tracked, but damage was done. A spokesman for Stephen Harper, now PM, said he had “no knowledge” of possible Chinese spying or espionage.

That’s the way it is in politics. The higher the position, the worse the memory. So Chinese defectors claiming 1,000 “spies” (to use the word loosely) operate in both Canada and Australia are met with a shrug.

Still, the record shows there is considerable Chinese intimidation directed at Falun Gong supporters around the world – not because Falun Gong is a subversive organization, but because its popularity is a rebuke to the Chinese Communist Party.

Does China indulge in industrial espionage? Huh. Might as well ask if the Pope is Catholic.

Shades of James Bond, the British Telegraph recently delved into the French experience with Chinese espionage, including the use of “honey traps” (sexy women) to lure industrial secrets from select businessmen. More at Toronto Sun

Falun Gong Misconceptions: “Controversial”?

CFP/MWC By Marie Beaulieu - The China government seems to be so important these days to politicians because of the new world order economy but how much do we really know about the people of China? Why not check a short interview with Canada Falun Dafa spokesperson Joel Chipkar on 'Falun Gong Misconceptions' here and here.

Joel comes with the facts and explores some important key factors surrounding the Falun Gong movement in China that sheds light on the intent of the propaganda pumped by the Chinese regime for the past 12 years and its impact in China and abroad.

• The draconian human rights abuses perpetrated by Chinese communist authorities against apolitical, peace-loving, lawful citizens who practice a cultivation of mind and body called Falun Gong.

• In China, Falun Gong was anything but “controversial,” much less labeled “heretical,” prior to its persecution in 1999 and even the CCP cadre was fond of it.

• Some officials envisioned it as a panacea for the aging nation’s health care woes.

• What happened? The Chinese regime banned the practice in 1999 while the Party faced a potential crisis of legitimacy—domestic and international—like no other given Falun Gong’s popularity and with the group not having been found at fault.

• The Communist Party’s solution? To demonize the group with vilification campaigns in state-run media and through elaborate PR initiatives abroad. This also served a second purpose: to deflect people’s attention away from very real and pressing social problems, not to mention official corruption, that by some estimates threaten to tear the nation asunder.

• The cover up. Beijing authorities want you to ask who these people are (and are fed the vile Beijing's definition), rather than what is being done to them, i.e., forced organ harvesting, Stalinist style torture, gang rapes, pillage, etc.

We can help put an end to these atrocities by enforcing universal human rights conventions.

More at MWC and Canada Free Press

Shen Yun Rings in Chinese New Year in Auckland

AUCKLAND, NZ—It was the first day of the Chinese New Year when the Shen Yun Performing Arts International Company opened in Auckland, on Thursday, Feb.3. Full Article at The Epoch Times

Related Quotes

I know ballet, but this is so much smoother, so much more flowing and exact…everything was so precise, every movement—but it looks so easy SOURCE: The Epoch Times

Everything is very good—excellent! SOURCE: The Epoch Times

I am very impressed with the music, because it’s got some classical music but you can still hear the bit of Chinese intonation SOURCE: The Epoch Times

I think it is fantastic ... The costumes I think are beautiful, wonderful colours, very colourful. SOURCE: The Epoch Times

I adore such a successful combination and very much hope that this kind of performance can be carried forward in the future. SOURCE: The Epoch Times

I particularly had this kind of feeling today. The backdrops were so vivid, and their colors changed intriguingly in harmonization with the programs SOURCE: The Epoch Times

demonstrating the divine magnificence, power, and mightiness in a limited time SOURCE: The Epoch Times

This is the first time in my life seeing scenes like that, something I could not have seen elsewhere. I felt something I had never felt before, and it is truly eye-opening. SOURCE: The Epoch Times

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Shen Yun: Ambassadors of Chinese Culture

Performances by Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance company, were recognized by Washington audiences as the truer representation of the Chinese people. “It was a really remarkable performance. It was wonderful to see the dance and the culture of China…... Full Article at The Epoch Times

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NTD: Exclusive interview with Vina Lee, Company Manager of Shen Yun Performing Arts

Chinese bosses tell NZ Pols to boycott Shen Yun--Falun Gong Show?

Ms. Casey felt that the letter was an extension into New Zealand of the CCP’s repression of Falun Gong in China. She noted the evidence of organ harvesting by practitioners captive in labor camps and prisons. “I have real concerns about that as a major global issue,” she said.

She has filed formal complaints about the letter to the chief executive of the city council and the head of the consular corps in Auckland. “I think this is breach of the partnership between council and the diplomatic corps, actually,” she said.

“This consul general has no right to tell me not to go to a production in Auckland. How dare they? It’s completely inappropriate behavior as a diplomat in this country. … I resent the intrusion of the consul into my political life and the political life of the Auckland Council.”

Keith Locke published a press release opposing the Chinese consulate's letter campaign to deter New Zealand politicians from attending Shen Yun Performing Arts. More at Epoch Times