Austria: Falun Gong Protest Against the Visit of a Chinese Minister

On February 3rd 2006, as the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) Foreign Minister, Li Zhaoxing, held talks with the European Union “Troika” and other Foreign Ministers in Vienna, Falun Gong practitioners conducted a peaceful protest against the CCP’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong, which has lasted for nearly seven years.

Practitioners held up banners and demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises along roadsides where the Chinese entourage was supposed to pass, and also in front of Austria’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

As the Chinese delegation was afraid of seeing Falun Gong’s banners, the motorcade took an out-of-the-way route instead. But they could not escape the Falun Gong practitioners who had been waiting for a long time in front of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Austria’s national TV station taped live interviews with the practitioners. Shortly after the protests were over, a programme covering the peaceful protest and the CCP’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong was aired on TV.

Li Zhaoxing was once the CCP’s Ambassador to the United States. After Jiang Zemin’s regime started the persecution in 1999, Li has done everything in his power to instigate a smear campaign against Falun Gong overseas to actively support the CCP’s brutal persecution of Falun Gong. Currently he has been listed as one of the key targets for investigation by the World Organisation to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong.