Australians Rally to Support More than 390 Million Chinese Quitting the CCP

A rally was held at Martin Place, Sydney to celebrate 390 million people having quitted the Chinese Communist Party. Wen Qingyang /The Epoch Times

Australian human rights advocates in Sydney have held a rally to support over 300 million Chinese people quitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and nearly two million people worldwide signing the “End CCP” petition.

The event, organized by the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, Sydney branch, on Feb. 17, condemned the global scourge of communism and called on the world to recognize the regime’s nature and resist its infiltration.

In 2004, The Epoch Times published a series of editorials entitled “Nine Comments on the Communist Party“, which triggered a moral and spiritual awakening movement for Chinese people at home and abroad to quit the CCP and its organizations, the Communist Youth League and the Young Pioneers, known as the ”Three renouncements” or “tuidang.”

As of Feb. 17, the number of people declaring to quit the CCP online has exceeded 391 million.

In June 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic, the Center initiated an “End CCP” global signature campaign. As of Feb. 17, nearly two million people had signed on to the website.

Former Wagga Wagga City Councilman Paul Funnell spoke at the rally. Wen Qingyang/ The Epoch Times

Paul Funnell, a former city councillor in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales’s largest inland city, warned attendees of the event about Beijing’s infiltration under the guise of a “sister city” back in 2020 and called for Wagga Wagga to cut all ties with the communist regime as the CCP virus spread.

The CCP never intended to be friendly to Australia, said Farnell, who drove more than six hours to attend the rally.

“They placed embargoes upon our beef why and barley, timber, and other products. They restricted access to markets and products such as fertilizers,” he said. “This is not mutual trade. This is not free trade, it’s not even fair trade.”

Funnell said he was standing here today to call on all people in the free world to unite against the tyranny and atrocities of the CCP and stop the threat to democracy and freedom posed by it.

Dr Sev Ozdowski, the former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, spoke at the rally. Wen Qingyang/ The Epoch Times

Dr Sev Ozdowski, OAM, Chair of the Australian Multicultural Council and former Australian Human Rights Commissioner, praised the Tuidang movement as a very important movement in contemporary history.

Ozdowski condemned the CCP for killing Chinese people, destroying cultural monuments, persecuting Christians, imprisoning millions of Muslims, harvesting organs from Falun Gong practitioners, destroying Hong Kong’s autonomy and threatening Taiwan after it took power more than 70 years ago.

He said the CCP not only committed crimes against Chinese people but also sought to impose a new world order.

“It’s time to support free and democratic China and the free world with Chinese Communist Party domination.”

He quoted former Polish President Lech Walesa’s description of the Tuidang movement as his closure: “This Tuidang movement, the history tsunami, as I deeply believe nothing is able to stop it anymore. No one can stop a spirit of freedom.”

Professor David Flint, a senior Australian jurist, spoke at the rally. Wen Qingyang /The Epoch Times

Professor David Flint AM, a senior Australian jurist and host of The Epoch Times ’Australia Calling’ program, said it was a good thing to encourage the Chinese people to abandon the CCP and that people must also call on elites in the United States, the West and Australia to abandon their appeals to the communist regime.

“We should also insist that the elites, particularly in business, stop their support for dollars of the Communist Party of China,” he said.

Barrister Sophie York spoke at the rally. Wen Qingyang/ The Epoch Times

Sophie York, a barrister and lecturer in law at the University of Sydney, said there are two reasons for her solidarity with the Tuidang movement: Firstly, the CCP’s inhumanity, such as the forced harvesting of organs from Falun Gong practitioners, the enslavement of Uighurs, and the disappearance of dissidents.

“The CCP will eventually commit those against any other people in the world who do not kowtow,” she said.

Secondly, the CCP does not act according to the regulations of the international rules-based order. “The [CCP’s] lies led to the spread of the virus all over the world and led to millions of deaths.”

She argued that the CCP has not only turned the world into a corrupt, militant, selfish, rule- and moral-free place but is also eroding global institutions and systematically infiltrating governments.

She called on the Australian government to immediately enact an anti-foreign infiltration bill to identify CCP infiltration and conduct foreign infiltration scores on all institutions such as banks, political parties, corporations, law firms, universities, and churches.

In her closing remarks, York thanked the Falun Gong practitioners who promoted the Tuidang movement.

“Thank you, we must join with other good nations in exposing and eradicating all the tentacles of Chinese communism,” she said. “We must never give up our freedom. Never give up our national sovereignty, our rule of law, nor our humanity.”

John Deller, a spokesman for the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, spoke at the rally. Wen Qingyang / The Epoch Times

The Tuidang spiritual awakening movement, promoted by Falun Gong practitioners, has been going on for 18 years. John Deller, a spokesman for the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, said that the movement has no political demands and does not propose an alternative political framework to the CCP.

Deller said communism is an evil specter in the world at present, but he believes that as more and more Chinese people realize the nature of the CCP, the Chinese communist regime is bound to perish.

“There in the West, we also have the 2 million people who are signing the petition to end the CCP... We can awaken, and we can realize what this entity is. It’s an evil entity,” he said.