Sydney Morning Herald: Falun Gong sees hand of Beijing behind attacks on campaign van

By Tom Allard

Stung … a man has been charged for damaging the campaign
vehicle.

Falun Gong practitioners who set up an elaborate sting to catch
a man repeatedly vandalising their campaign vehicle claim the Chinese Government
may have ordered the attacks.

A 58-year-old Sydney man has been charged
with two counts of malicious damage after members of the dissident Chinese group
caught him early yesterday morning slashing the tyres and defacing the body of
the vehicle, which is emblazoned with anti-communist slogans.

Grant Lu,
who owns the vehicle, said he and an associate first spotted the man in July vandalising
it in Surry Hills. They kept watch and on August 8 caught him on video smashing
a brick through the front window and slashing its tyres.

When the next
attack came, early yesterday, Mr Lu was again watching. Police were called and
the man was found and identified by the earlier video.

As well as slashing
the vehicle’s tyres, the man allegedly sprayed highly flammable degreaser all
over the vehicle.

Mr Lu is a prominent activist for Falun Gong, a meditation
group with millions of devotees that Beijing views as an "evil cult"
with a political agenda.

Mr Lu’s wife, Ying Li, spent two years in a
labour camp in China for her beliefs and was identified by Hao Fengjun, a defector
to Australia from China’s security services, as someone whose activities were
monitored by the Chinese Government.

Another defector, former diplomat
Chen Yonglin, said the Chinese Government regularly monitored and harassed Falun
Gong members when he worked at China’s Sydney consulate.

China has denied
the claim but Mr Lu said he strongly believed that the Chinese Government was
involved in the vandalisation.

"It’s one of two possibilities: someone
acting independently who was brainwashed by the Communist Party, or someone who
is working for the Chinese Government," he said.

"After what
Chen said, I think this reason is more likely."

Mr Lu said his van
had been vandalised 10 times in the past five years while his private vehicle,
with nothing to link it to a Falun Gong practitioner, had been attacked twice.
"It happens constantly. I am parked everywhere around the city but they find
it and damage it."

http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/falun-gong-sees-hand-of-beijing-behind-attacks-on-campaign-van/2005/08/31/1125302628791.html