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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Peaceful Demonstrator ‘Kicked and Bitten’ by Thug in Vancouver Chinatown

By He Hanming and Martin Croucher
Epoch Times Staff
Jul 29, 2008
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At around 1 p.m. on July 28, the man in the photo allegedly assaulted Mr. Chen, a Falun Gong practitioner in Vancouver’s Chinatown. (The Epoch Times )
A peaceful demonstrator was severely beaten and bitten by a man who was believed to have been incited to violence by hate propaganda put out by the Chinese Embassy.

Mr Chen was calmly distributing human rights materials in Vancouver's China Town when he was approached and threatened by the stranger on Monday, July 28.

He was punched and kicked after Mr Chen produced a camera to take the man’s picture.

The attack follows a spate of violent attacks against the Falun Gong spiritual movement by angry Chinese mobs in New York’s ethnic Flushing area.

According to a recorded telephone investigation independently conducted by World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), the Consulate General Peng Keyu of China’s Consulate in New York admitted to have plotted the attacks on Falun Gong in Flushing, New York. Following the initial attacks on Falun Gong in Flushing, sporadic attacks on Falun Gong practiioners have been reported in Paris, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles.

According to witnesses, the attack on Monday was the culmination of increasingly threatening behaviour from groups that appeared to have been summoned by telephone calls.

Mr Chen said, “While we were in China Town distributing print materials about Falun Gong and materials revealing the truth about the Chinese Communist Party, a man approached us. He was identified to have harassed our fellow Falun Gong practitioners elsewhere. He threw down a brown cardboard placard containing slogans slandering Falun Gong. Then he started to curse us.”

He added, “I took out my camera to take his photos. When he saw my camera, he ran at me and pushed me. When I was taking his photos, he tried to grab the camera. Then he started to hit me. He targeted my head and face. I felt very dizzy. I told fellow Falun Gong practitioners to call the police at once.”

Mr Chen added that when the man saw that the group were attempting to call the police he ran off. But because Falun Gong teaches non-violence he had no way to stop him except by hanging on to his clothes.

“He started to hit me harder and targeted my head and my face. He tried many dishonorable techniques, including kicking me in the crotch and biting me.”

Falun Gong is a peaceful meditative movement which was banned by the Chinese Communist regime in 1999 after a government study found 100 million people were practicing.

It’s members have since become the target of hate propaganda and the regime regards it as one of its top threats as peaceful attempts to expose numerous cases of torture against its practitioners in China.

The volunteer media spokesperson for Falun Gong practitioners in Vancouver, Zhang Su said, “Because of the Chinese Communist regime’s hate propaganda and smear campaign against Falun Gong for the past nine years, a group of Chinese people here have fallen prey to the propaganda and become the henchmen of the Chinese Communist regime. We call upon police in Vancouver to thoroughly investigate the hate crime.”

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