Chinese Whistle-blower Diplomat Warns Montreal Audience
Posted by chinaview on June 15, 2007
Stephanie O’Hanley, hour.ca, Canada, June 14th, 2007-
In Chinatown last weekend, Falun Gong (Falun Dafa) protesters handed out pamphlets
and petitions alleging the Chinese government is harvesting and selling the organs of live Falun Gong practitioners in China. Chinese émigrés involved in Montreal’s Falun Gong group have long said such activism puts them at risk of being denied travel visas to China or having family members in China threatened.
Enter former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin (photo right) with proof.
During a whirlwind tour last week of Montreal, Ottawa, Vancouver and Toronto, Chen, who spent 14 years working for China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs before defecting to Australia in 2005, warned audiences China is using spies and fronting Chinese community organizations in Western countries to work against Falun Gong, Tibetan and Taiwanese groups and pro-democracy activists.
The Chinese government banned Falun Gong – a spiritual practice of meditation and exercises – in 1999. On its website, the Chinese embassy in Ottawa describes Falun Gong as “a cult that brings harm to the society and an illegal organization that engages in law-breaking activities.” Chen says every Chinese embassy and consulate has an internal working group that targets Falun Gong.
“Penetration is very serious into the local Chinese community and also the mainstream,” Chen told Hour. He says a Montreal Chinese newspaper publisher recently received a call from the Chinese embassy in Ottawa telling him not to rerun an ad from a particular group, and that the host of a party a local Chinese organization held for Chen at a Montreal restaurant last weekend was also intimidated. “Most local Chinese people are afraid of their influence,” he says.
During four years as counsel for political affairs at the Chinese consulate in Sydney, Chen says he ran “campaigns of influence affecting governmental and even non-governmental organizations.” He’s kept the list of the 1,000 spies and paid informants he supervised and estimates Canada has just as many informants. Perhaps ironically, in China Chen spent four-and-a-half years working in an office next door to Lu Shumin, these days China’s ambassador to Canada.
- original report from hour.ca: Chen Yonglin warns Montreal audience – Chinese whistle-blower Chen Yonglin in Montreal
