Canada: Practitioners Protest CCP's Escalation of Persecution under the Pretext of the Olympics in Calgary

On August 7th, 2008, the Calgary Falun Dafa Association and the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (CIPFG) jointly held a press conference in front of the Chinese Consulate to protest the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) escalation of the persecution of Falun Gong under the pretext of the Olympics. The mainstream media, including CTC, Global TV, Calgary Sun and Metro covered the event.

Under the pretext of security for the Olympics, the CCP has stepped up the illegal arrest of Falun Gong practitioners. Since the end of 2007 to the end of June 2008, at least 8,037 practitioners have been arrested. These cases have been fully documented.

Recently, the Calgary media carried comments on the Beijing Olympics and criticised the CCP's tarnishing the Olympic spirit.

Protesting the persecution at the Chinese Consulate	A practitioner being interviewed

At the rally, a Ph.D student surnamed Liu from the University of Calgary exposed the CCP's persecution with his own experience. Mr. Liu was sentenced to a three-year prison term for downloading information from a Falun Gong website. His wife Yao Yue was sentenced to twelve years for practising Falun Gong and is still imprisoned in the Beijing Women's Prison, a mere few miles from the Beijing Olympics venue. No information about her current plight is known. The CCP regime promised freedom of the press and Internet access when bidding to host the Olympics. In reality, the regime deceived the world people once again.

Western practitioner Dane and Chinese practitioner Jenny condemned the CCP's deceit and pointed out that the CCP has barred 43 types people from attending Olympic events, including Falun Gong, Tibet and democracy activists. This ethnic, religious, and political discrimination in in violation of the Olympic charter. The CCP has spent eight hundred million dollars to establish the "Golden Shield," a firewall to block Internet information. The CCP has hired 500,000 Internet police to monitor Chinese people's use of the Internet. The Internet in China has essentially become an intranet under the CCP's control. Information filtering and website blocking makes it difficult for Chinese people to communicate with the outside world. Dane condemned the CCP's arrest of more than five hundred Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing. More than thirty of them were unlawfully sentenced to imprisonment for longer than two years.

As the Chinese Consulate in located near a major road, many passing motorists expressed their support for the press conference by honking their horns. Calgary police closed off one lane to ensure the safety and convenience of the press conference attendees and media reporters.