Falun Gong marks third year of protest
Practitioners, claiming persecution in China, are
a fixture outside the consulate

Chris Johnson
Vancouver Sun
August 20, 2004

VANCOUVER - Sitting in a makeshift shelter outside the Chinese consulate on Granville, Cindy Cheng is meditating in a bid to send a message to her homeland.

She's one of the Vancouver practitioners of the Falun Gong spiritual movement who have been taking turns sending the same message for the past three years.

What they want is for China to stop what they say is its persecution of Falun Gong followers in that country and elsewhere.

"I just sit here, sending out a thought to China, because the persecution is so bad," says Cheng, a young mother who sits outside the consulate on Granville near 16th Ave. for five hours once a week.

A Chinese consular official ignores her as he pulls into the driveway of the new, four-storey consulate, which looks -- oddly enough -- like a temple.

Cheng, and many others, claim China has tortured and killed 1,024 Falun Gong followers, detained thousands in China, including their relatives, and harassed, detained, and spied upon Canadian citizens in Vancouver, Calgary, and elsewhere.

While Chinese officials couldn't be reached for comment Thursday, China's state media and Chinese-language press in Canada have repeatedly called Falun Gong practitioners an "evil cult" that threatens the security of China's one-party system, which monopolizes the right to organize.

"We're not against the government," says Sue Zhang, who works in a chemistry lab at Simon Fraser University. "[Our protest] only has one purpose -- stop the persecution."

Some of Vancouver's 200 Falun Gong practitioners will mark the third anniversary of what they call a "peaceful appeal" in front of the consulate with a candlelight vigil from 7 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. tonight.

They're often seen practising their introspective mix of tai chi, Buddhism and Taoism at Queen Elizabeth Park in Vancouver, Central Park in Burnaby and at other parks in the region.

Andrea Hayley, a cook who says she was detained in Beijing and followed home by a Chinese official in Calgary, says they will continue to take turns meditating at the protest site round the clock for years if need be.

"It's not much to suffer to raise awareness of persecution. I'm really touched by the courage, strength, and dedication they've put into this."

She points to Yuzhi Wang, a 48-year old car saleswoman who moved to White Rock two years ago from the Chinese city of Harbin.

Wang says Chinese labour camp officials made her cross-eyed by force-feeding her through tubes in her nostrils. "The only purpose of the arrest is to force us to give up the practice [of Falun Gong]. But we won't."

The protest site resembles a funeral scene in China, with flowers and the Chinese character tao, meaning "to pay tribute" to the dead. Banners urge people to "prosecute [Chinese leader] Jiang Zemin and his followers" for "genocide" and "crimes against humanity" for outlawing the group, which claims millions of followers worldwide.

Though they often get abuse from passersby, the protesters claim that neighbours, and city council, have come to accept their presence on Granville after learning their purpose.

"It's always been a peaceful demonstration," said Vancouver police spokeswoman Const. Sarah Bloor. "We've got no legal grounds to move in, or a court injunction like at other places such as tent cities."

But the protesters admit many Chinese members of the community don't like what they are doing

"A lot of Chinese don't understand why we're here," says Zhang.

"They think it's making China lose face. But China is losing face because of it's persecution. We're not aiming to defame China. We love our motherland."

© The Vancouver Sun 2004

Source Vancouver Sun