TORONTO—The sender of emailed bomb threats to the venue hosting Shen Yun Performing Arts in Toronto boasted about having links to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), contents of two newly released emails received by the show’s presenter reveal.
Shen Yun, which started the Toronto leg of its global tour on March 28, was set to begin its third show at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts on the afternoon of March 29, but the show was cancelled by the theatre after the venue received an emailed bomb threat from an account with a Chinese name. The theatre later also decided to cancel the remaining five shows that were scheduled through April 5.
The cancellation came despite the Toronto Police Service confirming that the threat was unfounded after investigations, and despite the objection of the show’s local presenter, who said it is common for the CCP to make such hoax threats against Shen Yun in an effort to suppress its shows. The presenter said that in all past cases of fake threats, the shows were allowed to proceed after police confirmed that there was no credible threat.
“These two new emails show the sender admitting the threats to the Four Seasons were hoaxes—as police determined at the scene—and that they were connected to the Chinese Communist Party,” said Joel Chipkar, a spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada.
New York state-based Shen Yun, a classical Chinese dance and music company, was formed in 2006 by a group of leading classical Chinese artists with a mission to revive China’s traditional culture. According to the company, its artists practice Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, a spiritual discipline based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The practice is persecuted by the CCP.
The local presenter of Shen Yun in the Toronto area is the Falun Dafa Association of Toronto.
Emailed Threats
The first emailed threat against Shen Yun was received by multiple Four Seasons Centre staff at 12:55 p.m. local time on March 29. It was sent from a Gmail account with a Chinese name written in Chinese characters. This was shortly before the show start time of 2 p.m., leading to the evacuation of the audience and cancellation of the show by the theatre, despite police confirming shortly after arriving on scene that there was no credible threat.The emailed threat reads in Swedish: “Many explosive devices have been placed at the Four Seasons Theatre and Parliament Hill in Canada. If the Shen Yun performance is not cancelled and continues to be shown, explosions are planned at Parliament Hill and the Four Seasons Theatre.”
European languages have been used in many of the previous cases of emailed threats targeting Shen Yun. In one such case last year, the Living Arts Centre in Mississauga received an emailed threat in Czech. The shows at that venue proceeded after police confirmed that the threat was not credible.
The show’s Toronto presenter said Shen Yun’s performances around the world have been targeted by such threats more than 150 times over the past two years, and that each time the shows were allowed to proceed after police confirmed that the threats were unfounded.
However, in the case of the Four Seasons Centre, the sender of the threats, who had used the same email in several previous threats against Shen Yun at other venues, later declared victory for causing the cancellation of the Toronto shows.
“The Toronto Four Seasons incident was my most successful one ... Haha!” reads an email sent to the show presenter on April 3, written in Chinese.
The email goes on to cite the CCP as the sender’s “motherland” and to denounce Canadian politicians as “insignificant.”
“I think that Canada’s petty politicians are utterly insignificant. ... Canada is hardly worth taking seriously. ... Even my motherland’s Communist Party couldn’t make the Shen Yun emcee cry, yet I actually did it,” the email reads.
A subsequent email sent a few minutes later by the same sender again boasted about the disruptions: “Hahaha! What can you do to me!? Hahaha! Police around the world have become like dogs ... running around everywhere at my command! Hahaha!”
The show presenter provided evidence that the same email account has been used to send threats to multiple venues around the world, including to theatres in Birmingham, England; Rouen, France; Busan, South Korea; and others. The account was also used to send a threat to the presenter in January, warning that Parliament Hill in Ottawa would be bombed if Shen Yun performed in Canada.
The Toronto Police told The Epoch Times that the issue is under investigation.
There are many other documented cases of the CCP targeting Shen Yun, whose performances feature the tagline “China before communism,” over the years.
Request to Resume Shows
Shen Yun’s local presenter is requesting that the Four Seasons Centre reschedule Shen Yun shows so that Canadians who bought tickets can have a chance to see the performances.“When police decide there is no public safety risk, Canadians’ right to attend performances must be upheld, even if the Chinese Communist Party disapproves,” Chipkar said.
“We urge the Four Seasons Centre to follow industry-standard threat responses and regain public trust by inviting Shen Yun back.”
The Four Seasons Centre and the Canadian Opera Co., which owns and operates the venue, did not respond to requests for comment.
In a statement issued last week, the Canadian Opera Co. said it made the decision to cancel the shows “out of an abundance of caution.”
The Canadian prime minister’s office, Public Safety Canada, Canadian Heritage, and Global Affairs Canada did not respond to requests for comment.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police referred the issue to the local police of jurisdiction in response to a request for comment.
“It’s really outrageous that these anonymous threats were able to shut down [an] arts and culture performance in this country, and I think we should be hearing more of an outcry,” Genuis said.
“We know that Shen Yun has faced challenges not because it’s controversial among Canadians, but because a foreign government doesn’t like it.”
“This organization has been targeted by a coordinated campaign of threats, including false bomb threats—some of which have been traced to actors linked to the Chinese Communist Party,” Sgro said on April 3.
“They represent a deliberate effort to intimidate, to silence, and to interfere with lawful cultural expression in Canada.”
Conservative Member of Parliament Marc Dalton said the fake bomb threats are a “tactic worldwide to derail” Shen Yun’s performances, and called on the Four Seasons Centre to allow the shows to resume at the theatre.
