Tensions mount between local Falun Gong practitioners and Ottawa’s Chinese embassy

While visiting China in 1998, Jean Zhi, 43, noticed a striking difference in her home country.

She had moved to Portugal in 1995 to pursue a PhD, and had been away from China for three years. Zhi’s absorbing new life in the picturesque port city of Aveiro kept her unaware of the rapid changes occurring in her constantly evolving homeland.

One such change was visible during the regular walks Zhi took through China’s parks. Here, she noticed large gatherings of people who moved their bodies in sync to the gentle melodies of traditional Chinese folk music floating through the air.

Drawn to their soft, flowing arm movements and serene expressions, Zhi was curious. “Why are there so many [exercisers]? What is it?” she said she thought at the time.

Since then, Zhi has come to know these exercises as part of Falun Gong, a popular Chinese spiritual movement founded in 1992. An amalgam of mysticism, Buddhism and a traditional Chinese breathing exercise known as qigong, Falung Gong was banned by the Chinese government in 1999 following a silent protest mounted by 10,000 practitioners outside Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party’s central headquarters in Beijing. Since the demonstration, which was staged to condemn state-run media reports the group said were defamatory, Chinese authorities have continued to suppress the activities of Falun Gong supporters.

Zhi, who moved to Ottawa in 2000, first began practising Falun Gong herself shortly after her trip to China.

“I started listening to the Falun Gong founder [Li Hongzhi]’s speech, and it just came into my heart,” she said, eyes widening through her circular framed glasses. “It teaches people to become better [human beings], which I’m very, very interested [in].”

After hearing Li speak about “truthfulness, compassion and forbearance,” the movement’s three major tenets, Zhi said she thought, “Oh, this is what I want to follow.”

A slight, almost frail woman, Zhi exudes energy when speaking about Falun Gong. “I found this practice brings me happiness and also a kind of confidence in myself,” she said, speaking at a rapid-fire pace. “I feel my life [has] become more solid…I got rid of all those feelings [of doubt].”

The Chinese government, however, sees the practice in a significantly different light.

In a phone call Tuesday, a spokeswoman for China’s embassy in Ottawa declined to comment directly on the country’s Falun Gong policies, but later provided links to government-sponsored websites via email that she said present China’s “perspectives.”

The English-language version of one website, mingjing.org.cn, features the headline, “Truth on ‘Falun Gong,’” and includes a database of hundreds of articles condemning the movement.

An article entitled “Falun Gong Evil and Harmful” labelled Falun Gong as “an evil force with an anti-society, anti-mankind and anti-civilization nature,” and called the Chinese government’s decision to outlaw the practice as a “righteous and legal action.”

Another article entitled “Heretical Cult – The True Colors of Falun Gong” details the experience of a Chinese doctoral student who, after taking up Falun Gong, was diagnosed with schizophrenia, and subsequently admitted to a “mental hospital.”

Gong Cho, 22, a member of the Algonquin College Chinese Students’ Association in Ottawa, agrees with the government’s characterization of the movement. “Sometimes [Falun Gong] will make people crazy, I think,” he said, citing a friend who “thought he could become a god after he died, so he wanted to kill himself.”

Cho, who is originally from China, said that he avoids Falun Gong, and added that neither his friends nor his family back home “like” or practise it.

David Kilgour, a former MP and Canada’s former secretary of state for the Asia-Pacific, said statements in support of the Chinese government indicate that people like Cho have been “watching the non-stop propaganda from the Chinese government media—which is all the media in China—for probably more than 10 years.”

“And unfortunately, a lot of people who don’t know better begin to believe [the allegations against Falun Gong] when they see nothing but non-stop propaganda.” Kilgour said heatedly over the phone.

Lucy Zhou, 46, an Ottawa-based Falun Gong practitioner, said that the propaganda in China has led to tensions between local supporters of the Chinese government and local followers of the movement. “There’s a campaign to eradicate Falun Gong in China and outside. So basically, you feel the pressure right here [in Canada],” she said. “Since 1999, there has been lots of hate propaganda [against Falun Gong] inside the Chinese community in Ottawa, Toronto, Montreal, everywhere.”

She added that the propaganda aims to ostracize and spread fear amongst practitioners, citing an Ontario Human Rights Tribunal case in which the court found that the Ottawa Chinese Senior Association discriminated against a senior by refusing her membership into the organization because she practised Falun Gong.

However, the Chinese government’s activities extend beyond harassment, Kilgour says. Along with David Matas, a Canadian human rights lawyer, Kilgour conducted an independent study into allegations that the Chinese government was harvesting organs of Falun Gong practitioners. “What we discovered to our horror was that these allegations that the party-state in China was killing [thousands of] Falun Gong practitioners for their organs were true,” he said.

An article on mingjing.org.cn refutes these allegations, quoting Zhang Weidong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Ottawa, who said they are “based on rumours and totally groundless.”

John Zheng, 25, a Canadian citizen who emigrated from China to Canada in his early teens, said he does not doubt that the Chinese government is harassing, torturing and killing Falun Gong practitioners. But he added that he is skeptical of the movement. “It’s not a true religious movement,” Zheng said. “I think it’s a movement with political agenda as its first priority, and uses religious rhetoric to [influence] everyone.”

“Traditional martial arts can also be classified as having spiritual-slash-physical enhancements…but how come none of them get prosecuted?”

In contrast, Kilgour said he believes that Falun Gong is a genuine spiritual movement, and cites conflicting ideologies with the Chinese Communist Party and its rapid growth in size and popularity as reasons why the Chinese government is specifically targeting Falun Gong practitioners. The CCP sees Falun Gong as a threat to its power, authority and legitimacy, Kilgour concludes.

As Jean Zhi speaks, she clutches a sky blue book inscribed with the words “Zhuan Falun” in gold lettering, the core text of Falun Gong practice. Although she said she firmly believes that the Chinese government is committing atrocities against Falun Gong practitioners, Zhi emphasized that she is “not afraid.”

“Why?” she pauses, smiling. “Because I did nothing wrong.”