The Falun Dafa Associations in Australia call upon the Australian Government to offer immediate asylum to Chinese diplomat Mr Chen Yonglin and to fully examine his allegations of Chinese spies operating in Australia.
For six years Falun Dafa practitioners in Australia have been subject to a wide range of interference and harassment orchestrated by the Chinese Embassy and consulates in this country. These incidents include physical threats, harassing phone calls, damage to property, salacious misinformation about the practice of Falun Dafa and attempts to adversely influence local councils and events organisers to exclude us from community functions.
Over the years we have encountered a number of suspicious characters masquerading as Falun Dafa practitioners and some members of the Chinese community have actively assisted the Embassy and consulates in their anti-Falun Gong campaign. We therefore have no doubt that Mr Chen's statements about Chinese Communist Party infiltrators in Australian society are absolutely true.
Such infiltrators are not like "spies" from the Cold War era. They could be highly skilled technicians or scientists working for a big corporation, they could be running a Chinese language newspaper, they could own your favourite restaurant or they could be your family doctor. They are hard to spot because they appear to be living perfectly normal lives, but when they come across some information that will be useful for the Party they diligently report back to Beijing. The effect of this network has led to many Falun Dafa practitioners being on a travel black list, having their phones monitored, homes broken into and such serious incidents as Mr David Liang being shot in South Africa.
Yesterday the Chinese Ambassador to Australia made a speech in which she poured scorn on Mr. Chen's claims stating that: "This is not the 1970s. We have moved on." Certainly this is what China wants the world to believe and they have worked tirelessly in recent years to present a benign face to the world. At the same time the treatment of Falun Gong practitioners has become even more ruthless with the current recorded death toll reaching 2,336.
The Ambassador also commented that she saw no reason why Mr Chen would face jail in China "because there is no civil crime in his behaviour". However, Falun Gong practitioners in China have not committed any crime either - yet they face torture and death simply because of their peaceful beliefs. And when exposing the atrocities committed against Falun Gong practitioners is labelled as "leaking state secrets", how can we really expect Mr Chen to escape retribution for exposing the secrets of the Chinese Communist Party in Australia?
To expose the reality behind the ambassador's rhetoric we need look no further than a report in the Hong Kong Standard on 1 March 2005 regarding an article in the Chinese Communist Party's Qiushi Magazine by top security official Luo Gan. Luo Gan stated that: "The disturbance and destruction from hostile forces in China and abroad constitutes a serious threat to social stability in a strategically important period in our country."
Luo Gan further stated that intelligence work must be stepped up to "smash their activities". He also said: "We must insist on actively attacking them, as soon as they emerge, to take early action to keep the enemies under control." Luo called once again for renewed efforts to eradicate Falun Gong. In addition, CCP ideologues have reprimanded the Foreign Ministry for being rife with "political corruption" and called for more political education in the diplomatic corps.
Journalist Catherine Armitage suggested in Monday's Australian that: "If he is ever repatriated, Mr Chen will probably be whisked from the airport direct to jail." We know of no reason to disagree with that statement and would therefore request that the Australian Government uphold the principles of liberty, compassion and "a fair go", which constitute the foundations of our democracy, and immediately grant Mr Chen asylum.
Yours sincerely
Falun Dafa Association of New South Wales
Falun Dafa Association of Victoria
Falun Dafa Association of Queensland
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