Controversial Bylaw Prompts Vancouver Mayor to Call for Redraft

Mayor says the bylaw needs to be improved, but also hints at protecting the interests of the Chinese consulate.
Controversial Bylaw Prompts Vancouver Mayor to Call for Redraft
By
4/14/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015
<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/IMGP2900a.jpg" alt="In this file photo, a Falun Gong practitioner meditates outside the Vancouver Chinese Consulate. (Patrick Dong/The Epoch Times)" title="In this file photo, a Falun Gong practitioner meditates outside the Vancouver Chinese Consulate. (Patrick Dong/The Epoch Times)" width="300" class="size-medium wp-image-1805555"/></a>
In this file photo, a Falun Gong practitioner meditates outside the Vancouver Chinese Consulate. (Patrick Dong/The Epoch Times)

In a rare statement issued Monday, the Chinese consulate also cited the Vienna Convention, and urged the city to “take effective measures to prevent any activities from Falun Gong and protect the safety, peace and dignity of the Chinese Consulate General.”


The statement also denied accusations that consulate officials had put pressure on the city to remove the Falun Gong protest from in front of the consulate.

Some city councillors and the Falun Gong community were aghast upon learning at a council meeting last Thursday that city engineer Peter Judd had held “confidential” meetings “to get some degree of feedback” from the consulate on the proposed bylaw.

City Councillor Ellen Woodsworth says she was “very surprised” to hear that city staff consulted the Chinese consulate, adding that there has been strong public criticism around it.

“I think a lot of the membership are really speaking out. The media is speaking out. We’re getting emails, very strong emails, against this,” she says.

The bylaw has come under fire for its restrictiveness—in particular because it would ban any kind of protest structures in residential areas. The consulate is located in Vancouver’s upscale Shaughnessy neighbourhood.

Protest a ‘Major embarrassment’

The controversy surrounding the relationship between the city of Vancouver and the Chinese regime began when former Mayor Sam Sullivan ordered the Falun Gong’s long-running protest—which included signs along the consulate fence and a small shelter hut on the grass between the fence and the sidewalk—removed after caving to pressure from the Chinese consulate.

Sullivan maintained the protest violated a city bylaw and went to court to have it dismantled. The BC Court of Appeal later ruled the removal unconstitutional and ordered the city draft to a new bylaw by April 19.

In the case, a former Chinese diplomate, submitted an affidavit to the court outlining details of the methods consulate staff around the world use to silence and defame Falun Gong. Chen Yonglin, a former first secretary for the Chinese Consulate in Sydney who defected from the Communist Party in 2005, said the consulate protest in Vancouver was particularly sensitive, calling it a “major embarrassment to the Chinese Government.”

“Every Chinese Embassy and Consulate, in all foreign countries, has at least one diplomat whose primary job it is to implement the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners who are Chinese nationals with temporary or permanent residency, and citizens of the host country,” he said in the affidavit.

Falun Dafa Association spokesperson Lucy Zhou fears the compelling reason behind the protest—the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China—is being forgotten.

“The persecution of Falun Gong, the torture, the killing, the crimes against humanity—this is a universal human rights issue, it’s not just a Falun Gong issue,” she says. “Dignity is not maintained by using the bylaw to restrict the protestors. Dignity is maintained by urging the Chinese officials to ask their government to stop all their atrocities.”

After the Chinese regime outlawed Falun Gong in 1999, it launched a campaign of persecution against adherents of the spiritual discipline that continues today.

Next: Bylaw ‘Targeted at Falun Gong’

Bylaw ‘Targeted at Falun Gong’

Aside from banning protests in residential areas, under the proposed bylaw costly protest permits would be required if structures were used, and any structures would have to be removed between 8 p.m. and 8 a.m. Applicants would have to be at the location at all times when the structure is present, and couldn’t attach anything to sidewalks or walls.

The size of structures would be restricted, and drawings and detailed plans for protests, including traffic control plans, would have to be provided to the city for approval. No electric lights, heat, or gas cylinders could be used.

Woodsworth said the bylaw is heavily flawed and that she is “strongly opposed” to it.

“This bylaw will make it impossible for people to protest with structures and that’s against the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.”

Scott Bernstein, a lawyer with Pivot Legal Society, says that due to the specific nature of the new bylaw’s restrictions, it is clearly an attempt to discourage the Falun Gong, whose shelter hut and signs were an important part of the success of their 24/7 vigil outside the consulate.

“It’s pretty clear that this amendment is focusing on the Falun Gong vigil ... it’s targeted at the Falun Gong,” he said.

Ansley believes city staff didn’t take into account the Appeal Court’s ruling that Falun Gong having a structure in front of the Chinese Consulate was integral to the group’s freedom of expression.

The court asked the city to outline the basic guidelines and safety requirements for protests, not to make “blanket prohibitions,” he says.

“The Court of Appeal specifically addressed that argument from the city’s lawyers and specifically rejected it, and said that subject to legitimate regulation ... it was the right of the protesters, not the right of the city, to decide how and where they could protest.”

Micheal Vonn, policy director for the BC Civil Liberties Association, says it is clear the city has not considered the far-reaching effects of the bylaw and has no reason to heavily restrict the Falun Gong protest, which remained peaceful for eight years before it was removed.

“In the Falun Gong case it was very, very clear, years and years and years of evidence to say that there was no undue obstruction and the structure was safe.”

While no one is disputing the city’s right to create a safe environment for protesting, she says, the provisions “go way, way beyond that,” adding that the bylaw could impact all kinds of protests, from lengthy strikes to residential block parties.

Council will be re-convening on April 19th to discuss the revised bylaw, which will likely be posted on the city website by the end of this week. Speakers will be invited to comment, but there is no word on whether the city intends to meet the Court of Appeal’s April 19 deadline for final bylaw submission.

“Certainly the hope is that council will really take this opportunity to do this right. Nobody, but nobody, wants to see everybody back in court,” Vonn says.