Canada: Falun Dafa Association of Canada Requests CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) to Correct the Damage Done by Repeating the Slanderous News on Media in China

On December 31, 2003, CBC aired a report repeating a piece of news in which the media slandered Falun Gong. Falun Dafa Association of Canada wrote a letter requesting them to correct the damage.

The letter follows:

Re: Urgent request to correct damage done by CBC

On Wednesday December 31, 2003, CBC aired a report repeating a Chinese government claim that a Falun Gong practitioner was sentenced to death for killing beggars with rat poison in order to improve his spiritual strength. The Falun Dafa Association of Canada is devastated that CBC would irresponsibly link us with a mass killer and broadcast this nation wide to cause us potential discrimination and escalated persecution. This repercussion to our cause is nothing less than devastating and we are asking to meet with CBC executives and editors to discuss the seriousness of this situation and timely rectification.

We understand that media and broadcast media in particular have an obligation to be fair, accurate, thorough, comprehensive and balanced in their presentation of information. However, this murder case in question is an unsubstantiated report, which was investigated by an international investigation team and found highly contradictory more than two months ago. Also, the CBC aired this report without interviewing a single Falun Gong representative or conducting any investigation into whether the Chinese regime's claims were factually based.

Moreover, for the past four years the Chinese regime has waged a documented and deadly persecution against Falun Gong. The same regime CNN reported as saying, "if we don't eliminate Falun Gong soon it will be seen as a major weakness to the Communist Party." The same regime whose claims Amnesty International, government bodies and world media have reported as, "bogus" "questionable," "alarming", "unproven," "hate incitement" and a "massive propaganda campaign," that is being used to brainwash the public into hating Falun Gong and to hide the regimes atrocities. This same regime that is responsible for thousands of deaths of Falun Gong practitioners and has actively spread hate materials against Falun Gong to our media and government officials here in Canada to try to eliminate support.

The spiritual discipline of Falun Gong has been practiced in communities all over North America and Europe since 1994 and for 10 years Falun Gong and its beautiful exercises have been taught to millions of people across the world. Falun Gong practitioners are proud to be the engineers, doctors, business persons, housewives, and students etc that contribute to these communities and strive to bring the principles of Truthfulness Compassion and Tolerance into society.

During the past two years we have managed to free some of our family members from torture in China due to the overwhelming support from the world's people. Government officials and supporters who have helped with the release of our friends and relatives told us that the most important thing we need to do is to continue to rally public support and educate them on the Falun Gong issue so they will continue to sign petitions and write letters.

However, when false reports from the Chinese government created solely to attack us are echoed in mainstream western media it directly interferes with our ability to gain public support in order to save people's lives.

We are equally concerned because the Chinese regime will manipulate CBC's broadcast and report that western media also supports the persecution of Falun Gong. They will replay your broadcast in China to justify their persecution to the Chinese people. Also, in airing Chinese government propaganda CBC is sending the wrong message to the Chinese government on their extreme violations of human rights against their own citizens.

The campaign to eliminate Falun Gong is very real and the propaganda is the lifeblood of the persecution. Canadian media should not echo any reports on Falun Gong that come from the Xinhua or CCTV, their state-run media, as it is a well-accepted understanding in the West that all claims are manufactured by the regime's propaganda ministry in China. In echoing these claims they can be directly aiding in a persecution and tarnishing their own reputation and integrity.

Last year the CBSC ordered a Canadian TV station, Talentvision, to apologize on air for airing a very similar story directly from CCTV. They alleged that Falun Gong lead a man to murder his family. Talentvision was found guilty of four counts of violating journalistic and broadcast ethics. Today around the world there are many lawsuits in progress against Chinese newspapers that continued to defame Falun Gong.

We are asking CBC to meet with us as soon as possible to discuss the seriousness of this situation, the misrepresentation and damage this report has caused and how we can peacefully rectify this and make sure that this does not happen again. We feel this is extremely important not only to help safeguard CBC's reputation of implementing the highest standards of excellence and integrity in their reporting, but also to stop the Chinese regime from using our own media to filter hate propaganda into the west and poison innocent people.

Please contact us as soon as possible.

Sincerely,

Falun Dafa Association of Canada