For Nancy Dong, Beijing’s overseas surveillance became frighteningly real when her family back in China was confronted with photos of her protesting in Australia.
“[The photos] were probably taken by someone inside the [Chinese] Embassy [in Canberra]—they were very clear,” she told The Epoch Times.
“We set up a rain shelter outside the Embassy, and they even photographed that.”
Practitioners of the Falun Gong meditation practice maintain a vigil year-round outside the Canberra embassy protesting the ongoing persecution.
Dong says her family in China was summoned by officials from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s “610 Office,” who showed them photos of her participating in activities organised by Falun Gong practitioners, including the embassy protest.
The 610 Office, formally known as the “Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions,” is a Gestapo-like agency established on June 10, 1999 to persecute Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that combines meditative exercises with teachings based on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
The persecution, which includes widespread human rights abuses such as forced organ harvesting in mainland China, also extended overseas with the CCP leveraging overseas Chinese community groups and Western institutions to further its aims.
The officials told Dong’s family to pass a message to her, warning her not to be so active.
“[The 610 officials] called us ‘small leaders” [in the Falun Gong community], telling us to keep quiet. If we continue, they said they will take ‘countermeasures,’” said Dong.
This is the first time Dong’s family in China has been approached and warned, and the incident took place right after she was media reports of harassment she faced from group of Chinese youths came to light.
On Sept. 20, Dong and two fellow Canberrans were demonstrating the exercises and distributing flyers at Floriade, the Australian capital’s annual flower festival, when a group of young Chinese males approached them with one saying in Mandarin, “We are here to attack you!”
According to Dong, the students repeated a series of defamatory allegations disseminated by Chinese state media, and were later echoed via Chinese social media and Western media outlets.
They included comments criticising Falun Gong, its founder, and Shen Yun, a performing arts company aimed at reviving traditional Chinese culture.
Since being introduced to the public by Li Hongzhi in China in 1992, Falun Dafa, also known as Falun Gong, has spread globally, with millions of practitioners across 100 countries.
Three years earlier, Dong was physically assaulted during the 2022 Floriade after she caught two Chinese youths spraying paint on signage on her car that featured messaging criticising the CCP.
The subsequent altercation saw Dong receive bruises and injuries that forced her to use crutches.
The main assailant, Kang Zhao, was arrested by police after trying to leave Australia in December 2022 and was later fined $3,000 (US$1,973.59) by the ACT Magistrates Court in March 2023.
Call for Action Against Transnational Repression
The Falun Dafa Association of Australia has called on the government to address the intimidation of locals from foreign regimes, and has called for an official inquiry into “transnational repression.”
“If a free country like Australia cannot protect good people such as Falun Gong practitioners, who follow the principles of truthfulness, compassion, tolerance, then today, the CCP can suppress Falun Gong practitioners, tomorrow they can target any group or individual they dislike,” said Lucy Zhao, president of the Falun Dafa Association of Australia, in an interview with NTD TV, a sister media outlet to The Epoch Times.
Zhao’s comments come after New Zealand authorities accuse Beijing of being the “most active” foreign interference actor.
“There are several states undertaking foreign interference in New Zealand. The most active remains the People’s Republic of China (PRC),” the New Zealand Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) said in its Annual Threat Assessment.
The agency said it was aware of “online and physical surveillance activity” on behalf of foreign states.
“Often this includes activity such as monitoring social media, photographing individuals at events or protests, or instructing other community members to collect information,” NZSIS said.
“Foreign states use a range of tactics to intimidate and harass so-called dissidents. This can include taking pictures of them in plain sight, online harassment or blacklisting their businesses. A foreign state may also intimidate family members who live in that country.”
NTD reporter Philippe Wang contributed to this report.
