An Australian practitioner
I work in a business that is close to the Chinese Consulate in Sydney. As many people know, for the past three and a half years, the consulate on Elizabeth St has been the site of an ongoing appeal by Falun Dafa practitioners, peacefully appealing against the cruel persecution of Falun Dafa practitioners in China.
Some of the people I work with told me that they had offered to keep the practitioners’ banners each night, so the practitioners didn’t need to bring them in every day. The practitioners agreed, and so each afternoon they would bring the banners in, and then pick them up again the next morning.
A few days later, the business received an anonymous call from the Chinese Consulate. The man suggested that they stop helping the Falun Dafa practitioners. The girl who answered the phone was quite offended and adamantly refused, telling the man that Surry Hills is a community, and that he had no right to interfere in its everyday affairs. However the bosses of the business, though knowing that Falun Dafa is a peaceful practice, realised the power wielded by the Chinese Government and chose to remain neutral. The employees were told to stop keeping the banners for the practitioners.
This is just one of many examples of the way that numerous officials of the Chinese Government have spread their vicious crusade against Falun Dafa outside China’s borders. Alexander Downer signs a document every month banning practitioners of Falun Dafa from using banners outside the Chinese Embassy in Canberra. In other democratic countries such as Germany and Iceland, at the time of a visit by Jiang Zemin, then Chairman of the Chinese Communist Party, Falun Dafa practitioners were arrested and detained for peacefully holding up banners. Recently the Chinese Embassy in Bucharest, Romania succeeded in preventing an art exhibition from taking place in a local theatre because it contained paintings by an artist who practiced Falun Dafa.
From these and many other incidents we can see that this persecution is not just happening “over there”. A growing awareness and concern for this problem in our country could play a significant part in eliminating this wicked interference in the democratic lives of Australians. It could also increase global pressure that might one day help to end the brutal repression of Falun Dafa practitioners in China in a state-sponsored campaign that to this day has resulted in the deaths of more than 600 Falun Dafa practitioners through torture and abuse in police custody.
Posting date: 21/Apr/2003
Original article date: 17/Apr/2003
Category: Open Forum
