Falun Gong practitioners mobilising against the visit of high-ranking Chinese Communist Party (CCP) official, Zhao Leji, endured a day of harassment from pro-CCP groups.
Over Nov. 24-25, the Australian Falun Gong community protested the regime’s ongoing 25-year persecution, as well as the practice of organ harvesting of detained practitioners.
Cao was near the Hyatt Hotel Canberra—where CCP official Zhao stayed—when he was confronted by the Fuqing group.
“They started recording and so I started recording. One was demanding me erase it. I didn’t do anything so they started grabbing my phone, which I got away with,” Cao told The Epoch Times. “They chased me and grabbed my shirt and it got ripped. That was another person and then he fell to the ground, which I didn’t care and kept running.”
Another Falun Gong community member, Layla Gu, had a similar experience.
“We were putting up banners today. My sister and I were doing it together. Then, people from the Fuqing Association started harassing and disrupting us. As we were putting up our banners, they blocked us with their own,” she told The Epoch Times in Chinese.
She said the issue escalated when the counter-protestor grabbed her flag pole.
“Seeing how aggressively they were acting towards Falun Gong practitioners, I stopped him and said, ‘Don’t touch my stuff,’” Gu said, saying she warned the person she would call the police.
While the other party let go of the pole upon hearing this, the stick was already broken.
“We displayed the banners to promote ‘Falun Dafa is good,’ and, ‘Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance is good,’ Gu said.
“It’s a righteous cause, but they came to disrupt and destroy it.”
Zhao’s visit has also caused controversy in the halls of Australia’s federal Parliament.
In an unprecedented move, Australian MPs and advisors were warned about the potential cybersecurity risks of being within proximity of the CCP delegation.
CCP Embassy Staff Watching the Aggression
Sunny Wang, who was protesting at the CCP’s embassy, was driven away by Fuqing members.“Fearing they might resort to violence, I used my phone to record a video as evidence. As a result, a leader from the pro-CCP Fuqing Association shouted at me angrily, extremely aggressive,” Wang said.
“Subsequently, when several individuals dressed in suits with the CCP’s five-star emblem on their chests, who appeared to be embassy staff, arrived to survey the situation, the pro-CCP individuals became even more aggressive and violent.
“One of them even used a flag pole to strike my head and rushed at me, pushing me, causing me to almost fall. This person also attempted to grab my phone. Later, one of the individuals, who seemed to be an embassy staff member, came over and threatened me, saying that if I continued filming, he would throw my phone away.”
The Fuqing Association claims to represent 10,000 Chinese-Australians in Sydney and has been actively trying to shut down Falun Gong-related activities, even sending a submission to a council-level meeting to oppose officially commemorating World Falun Dafa Day.
“In Australia’s democratic and free society, the CCP has sent its enforcers to carry out dictatorial and autocratic actions to persecute dissidents and organisations across borders,” said Wang.
Fuqing’s activities come amid ongoing warnings of transnational repression by foreign actors—described by the G7 as a more “aggressive form of foreign interference” aimed at silencing dissent overseas.
The cases of Cao and Gu are in the process of being reported to ACT Policing. The Epoch Times also attempted to contact the Fuqing Association but received no confirmation or reply.
Lucy Zhao, the president of Falun Dafa Association, said more scrutiny was needed of foreign interference locally.
“These organisations [are] not registered as foreign agents as required by the [Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme]. So we think their activities are inappropriate and even break the law,” she told The Epoch Times.
