On July 15, Lord Alton, chair of the UK Cross-Party Joint Committee on Human Rights, chaired a seminar organized by the Falun Dafa Association UK, titled “FoRB in China and the CCP’s Accelerating Transnational Repression,” in the UK Parliament, ahead of the release of the committee’s report on the Chinese regime’s transnational aggression.
Other attendees at Wednesday’s seminar included the former leader of the Conservative Party, Sir Iain Duncan Smith, Labour MP Marie Rimmer, international human rights lawyer Dr. David Matas, Caroline Yates from the UK Falun Dafa Association, and two Falun Gong practitioners who were attacked in the UK and China.
While many attendees at the seminar were already aware of the persecution faced by Falun Gong practitioners in China and abroad, the firsthand accounts of transnational persecution and the personal stories of victims touched the audience.
“[Falun Gong] is one of the most highly targeted groups of the Chinese Communist Party’s [CCP’s] transnational repression around the world, with other groups being Hong Kong activists, Uyghurs, and democracy activists,” Alton said.
Alton also highlighted some of the recent death and rape threats that Falun Gong practitioners have received. In addition to ongoing violent threats, the CCP continues to spread propaganda and misinformation, both online and near Shen Yun performance venues or Falun Dafa events, he said.
In every country Shen Yun has toured, local Chinese embassies have pressured theaters to cancel the performances. Over the past year, Shen Yun has faced a wave of violent threats.
Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that gained widespread popularity in China during the 1990s, with an estimated 70 million to 100 million followers at its peak. Since 1999, it has faced severe persecution by the Chinese communist regime, which feared that the faith’s popularity was a threat to its rule.
The leaks revealed tactics such as supporting YouTubers who spread disinformation, using agents and false narratives to create division within the Falun Gong community and between Falun Gong and the U.S. government, manipulating search engine results, and feeding defamatory content to mainstream Western media.
Shen Yun Has ‘Borne the Brunt’ of CCP’s Hate Campaign
Caroline Yates from the UK Falun Dafa Association thanked Alton for bringing these issues to the attention of the UK Parliament.She said that while Falun Gong practitioners continue to suffer horrific abuse inside China, the CCP also targets them heavily abroad.
“They face slander, harassment, surveillance, break-ins, physical attacks, and even a shooting of Falun Gong activists in South Africa, just to name a few of the CCP tactics,” she said.
“Shen Yun has borne the brunt of this new campaign. Because Shen Yun demonstrates the beauty of traditional Chinese culture, which Communism has tried to destroy, so it flies in the face of CCP ideology. It also portrays honest depictions of the severe human rights abuses of Falun Gong in China.”
With eight performing groups simultaneously touring around the world each year, Shen Yun has become one of the most successful organizations founded by Falun Gong practitioners.
Yates noted that since spring 2024, there has been a rise in physical attacks at Falun Gong sites, along with increased hostility toward Shen Yun in the UK.
She noted that every UK theater hosting Shen Yun is contacted by a Chinese diplomat or proxy who spreads defamatory messages about Falun Gong, issues threats, or tries to pressure venues into canceling performances.
She warned that as the CCP grows more aggressive and openly authoritarian, its influence in the UK increasingly undermines British laws, values, and democratic principles.
‘I Endure Constant Pain’
During the seminar, several Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside the UK Parliament, peacefully demonstrating their traditional sitting meditation. Inside, Jinghua Fu recounted her harrowing experience of being violently attacked in the UK.
Fu arrived in the United Kingdom in 2014 and, along with fellow practitioners, has distributed leaflets to raise awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong in China. She often spoke with Chinese passersby and tourists in areas such as Chinatown and outside the British Museum.
On Aug. 20, 2018, while she was engaged in peaceful outreach, a Chinese man suddenly lunged at her from behind and struck her forcefully. She said she then lost consciousness and has no memory of what happened after that.
“I don’t know how long I was unconscious,” Fu said. “When I came to, I had a splitting headache and intense pain in my lower back. It felt as if my body had been severed at the waist. My pelvis and ribs were in agony, and my neck was so stiff I couldn’t lift my head. The attacker had disappeared.”
She was taken to an ambulance on a stretcher. While being treated, police brought the alleged attacker to the scene.
“I saw that he was a young Chinese man, probably in his 20s, tall and strong,” Fu recalled. “When he saw me inside the ambulance, he looked terrified. I asked him why he had attacked me, as we had never met. He refused to give a reason. Instead, he knelt on the ground and begged me not to press charges.”
Fu was later diagnosed with a concussion, brain trauma, and multiple fractures, all of which have had lasting effects, she said.
Despite the severity of the attack, Fu chose forgiveness. As a Falun Gong practitioner, she follows the faith’s guiding principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
“I knew I should treat even those who hurt me with kindness. ... With this in mind, I decided to forgive him and not pursue legal action,” she said.
The attack left a lasting impact on her life.
“Even today, years later, I endure constant pain, 24 hours a day. ... During the day, I must constantly adjust my posture to relieve the pain,” she said.
Simple daily tasks such as shopping, cooking, and cleaning have become a major struggle for her, she told the seminar.
She said that the attack occurred during the day, outside China’s borders, in a free society; a violent act aimed at someone peacefully opposing the CCP’s persecution. She said her experience is just “the tip of the iceberg.”
Forced Organ Harvesting
Rimmer said she has highlighted what she called “the most horrific human rights abuse” against Falun Gong practitioners in China: forced organ harvesting—the removal of organs from prisoners of conscience, killing them in the process.In 2021, supported by parliamentarians such as Alton, the UK also amended the Medicines and Medical Devices Act to require consent and traceability for imported human tissue used in medicines, preventing unethical tissue from forced organ harvesting from entering the UK supply chain.
“We must continue to be a strong voice against these atrocities and to ensure freedom of religion or belief for all. And by doing so, also help to counter the transnational repression many Chinese diaspora face,” Rimmer said.
‘Heartbreaking’ but a ‘Reality’
Speaking after the seminar, Sir Iain Duncan Smith said the UK government could help counter the CCP’s transnational repression of Falun Gong in the UK by rejecting the regime’s proposal for a new embassy.The CCP bought the 700,000-square-foot Royal Mint Court site, a historic venue near Tower Bridge, in 2018 and planned to develop it into the largest Chinese embassy in Europe.
Once built, it would be 10 times the size of China’s current embassy in London and nearly twice the size of the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
Smith highlighted letters being sent to British citizens asking them to bring Chinese residents to the embassy for arrest.
“It is astonishing. Listening to those [stories] is heartbreaking, but at the same time, it’s a reality. The reality is China doesn’t care a damn which country they’re in,” he said.
“As far as they’re concerned, they have their right to go after any person that they think ... should be back in China being persecuted.”
The Joint Committee on Human Rights’ report on the CCP’s transnational repression will be published soon, Alton told The Epoch Times.
