VANCOUVER—An application for a “stay"—until after an appeal is heard—to maintain the long-running Falun Gong protest site outside the Chinese consulate in Vancouver was refused on Monday, day 2729 of the vigil that began seven years ago.
B.C. Court of Appeal Chief Justice Lance Finch dismissed the stay application requested by the Falun Gong group after their billboards and hut were ordered removed last month.
The B.C. Supreme Court found that the structures erected by the consulate fence violated city bylaws. The group is appealing that decision. The protest, however, is allowed to continue without the structures.
“We are very disappointed because the brutal persecution is still going on in China,” said Falun Gong spokesperson Sue Zhang, adding that the group will still protest without aid of the billboards and hut.
“They still torture and kill people and use arbitrary detention, and if this is not stopped then we would not stop our protest, for our mission is to raise awareness about this persecution. We want Vancouver residents and the government to support and help us to together stop the persecution.”
Zhang worries that without the large billboards, the group’s “voice will be dramatically reduced.”
Clive Ansley, legal counsel for Falun Gong, said he was “astounded” by Finch’s decision. He said the Chinese regime will use it in their propaganda.
“The Chinese communists are going to be declaring a great victory, and going to be no doubt writing it up in the Chinese media that the Canadian government has finally accepted the Beijing view on the nature of Falun Gong and won’t allow them to demonstrate any longer. They will make it look as if the Canadian government sides with the Beijing government as far as Falun Gong is concerned,” said Ansley.
The vigil was set up in the summer of 2001—two years after the Chinese Communist Party began their crackdown on Falun Gong—to call attention to the ongoing persecution of their counterparts in China in which at least 3,000 have been killed and tens of thousands tortured.
Ansley said the vigil means more than a mere legal issue involving the correct interpretation of a bylaw.
“This is a protest against genocide. This is a protest of conscience against mass murder of healthy persons for the purpose of removing their organs for sale on the international market. This is a protest of conscience against the most diabolical and fiendish form of torture practice on this planet today.”
The illicit harvesting of Falun Gong practitioners’ organs—while they are still alive—was revealed in a 2006 report called Bloody Harvest.
Falun Gong’s lawyers had argued that former Mayor Sam Sullivan wanted the structures removed at the behest of the Chinese regime and that Chinese consulate officials had pressured Sullivan to get rid of the protest.
“Unfortunately the former mayor, Sam Sullivan, initiated this case,” said Zhang. “The two mayors before him were fine with this, they thought it was fine. We feel that Chinese government has pressured very hard to remove us.”
Zhang said losing the site is all the more disappointing when it’s well known that the Chinese regime has a grim track record when it comes to human rights.
“China’s Human rights abuses are well documented by many international human rights organizations, like Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the recent United Nation Council review,” she said.
The city’s solicitor Tom Zworski said that while he was not in a position to make a commitment for the city, he could not see a problem with giving the group until Wednesday to remove the structures.
Judge Finch said that if the practitioners win on the appeal, they may re-erect the signs and hut. This is cold comfort to Ansley.
“It’s a sad day for a lot of people. It is a sad for anybody who believes in free speech, who believes in protesting against genocide and organ harvesting.”
