A Toronto man has been arrested after allegedly attacking Falun Gong practitioners outside a building in Toronto that hosts the Chinese consulate’s visa office.
At about 11 a.m. on Jan. 23, the man, who appeared to be in his fifties, marched up to a booth set up by Falun Gong practitioners and started striking at their banners with a metal rod. One of the banners read “Say No to the Chinese Communist Party.”
Toronto Police confirmed responding to an 11:12 a.m. call for damage, stating in an email statement to The Epoch Times that the man allegedly “hit one of the demonstrators and a sign with a cane.” The police arrested the man at the scene.
A Falun Gong practitioner, identified as “Summer” for safety reasons, alleged that the man, who seemed to be of Chinese descent, verbally assaulted her in English, which she couldn’t understand due to a language barrier.
“If you look at the one-meter-long ... iron rod he’s holding in his hand, you'd know he came prepared,” Summer told The Epoch Times in Mandarin.
This incident is not an isolated case of individuals assaulting Falun Gong practitioners in Canada.
Persecution
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a practice rooted in Buddhist traditions that involves meditation and moral teachings centred on the tenets of “truthfulness, compassion, tolerance.” For more than two decades, Falun Gong adherents in mainland China have faced persistent persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).Former CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who ordered the persecution in July 1999, considered Falun Gong a challenge to CCP rule due to the practice’s widespread popularity and its significant number of adherents in China, estimated to range from 70 million to 100 million at that time.
Beijing has proactively extended this persecution overseas through the Chinese consulate and other entities and individuals sympathetic to the regime.
Foreign Interference
In an effort to justify its human rights abuses, the CCP actively seeks to “alter the public perception of Falun Gong, diminishing public support for its call for justice and human rights,” stated the FDAC report. It added that the Falun Gong community in Canada is facing “a sophisticated and well-orchestrated foreign interference and repression campaign by the CCP that aims to suppress and silence their advocacy and resistance.”The report notes that Beijing’s foreign interference has evolved to become “more hidden and invisible,” resulting in limited public awareness in Canada regarding the threat posed by the CCP and the damage caused to “Canada’s internal affairs, sovereignty, and foundational Canadian values such as the protection of fundamental freedoms and good governance.”
