Les Presses Chinoises Trial: Dafa Practitioner Recounts Being Beaten by Chinese Diplomat Inside the Embassy in Ottawa

On the afternoon of November 21, in the Quebec Higher Court, Chinese international student Wang Xueliang testified that he was beaten up by Chinese diplomat Ma Xiaolong, on the evening of December 28, 2001. Wang is a witness in the case against the Chinese Newspaper Les Presses Chinoises, which has been accused of slandering and spreading hate propaganda about Falun Gong.

Wang was invited to join a movie party held by the embassy. When he saw a photo exhibit that slandered and spread falsified hate propaganda about Falun Gong, he took a photo of the exhibit. Several officials inside the embassy dragged him into a room downstairs and beat him when he refused to hand his camera over to them. Upon leaving the embassy, he reported the incident to the royal police and over 20 media representatives.

In special issues on January 5 and February 2, 2002, Les Presses Chinoises fabricated articles about the event. Wang told the court, "Les Presses Chinoises intentionally misquoted the Central News Agency (CNA) report." He showed the CNA's original article to the court.

The articles in Les Presses Chinoises claimed that Wang was taken away by the royal police. The paper also falsely reported that Wang and other Falun Dafa practitioners snuck into the embassy on many occasions. Wang testified to the Court that he went there alone and even greeted an embassy employee before entering. In addition, there is no record that the royal police arrested anyone there on that day.

Wang pointed out to the Court that Les Presses Chinoises completely made up the story, claiming that a Chinese community leader in Montreal witnessed the whole incident. It concealed the truth that an embassy official beat him up. The defendant's lawyer asked why Wang didn't contact Les Presses Chinoises to request a correction. Wang answered that Les Presses Chinoises repeatedly claimed that Falun Dafa practitioners' kind attempts to correct the accuracy of their news articles were harassment or attacks. Wang said that he felt there was no open channel of communication with the newspaper. Wang suggested that it might have been appropriate to interview him before running a story about the incident and wondered why the paper made no attempts to contact him.

The Canadian Information Agency asked Wang to identify the embassy official who beat him and he identified diplomat Ma Xiaolong, who is 36 years old. The embassy sent Ma Xiaolong back to China in June 2002 after this incident.

Wang pointed out that the newspaper's fabrications were a direct attempt to slander his reputation and were being used to slander Falun Gong inside of China as a tool to instigate people's hatred toward Falun Gong. These false reports were being used by Jiang and his regime to further the persecution of Falun Dafa inside China and the damage was far greater than just his own personal reputation.

This is the first time that the Chinese embassy's policy of using the media to persecute Falun Dafa overseas has been challenged in court.