The Epoch Times

By Andrey Volkov On May 24, 2010 @ 2:53 am In Europe

KYIV, Ukraine—By putting pressure on Ukrainian authorities, Chinese diplomats may cause the cancellation of a performance by Shen Yun Performing Arts, which was scheduled for May 28 at a theater in Odessa, in southern Ukraine. Shen Yun is a New York based company that is currently on tour around the world.

Some of the show’s performers were denied visas to enter Ukraine, and were given no explanation.

An organization run by Odessa regional Council “Oblconcerteservice,” has informed the Shen Yun show organizer in Ukraine, charity organization “For Children of the New Century,” that the agreement to rent the venue in Odessa Academic and Ballet Theatre has been suspended.

The letter says that Chinese officials have requested Odessa regional council cancel the Shen Yun performance in Odessa.
“It is categorical for the show not to take place. In such situation the juridical details—whether the contract had been broken or suspended—mean the same,” Dmitry Polunin, the head of Oblconcerteservice, told The Epoch Times.

Based in New York, Shen Yun Performing Arts is a nonprofit organization that is independent of China’s communist regime. Through classical Chinese dance, the performing arts group seeks to revive the five-millennia-old artistic tradition of China that was largely destroyed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) during the Cultural Revolution.

Since 2006, the company has performed more than 500 shows around the world to millions of audience members.

OperaOnline said the show “gave a glimpse of a culture and its history that was at times hypnotic in its presentation, sensual in its fluid movements, and inspirational in its theme … and flawless musical performances … simply astounding to watch and a pleasure to the ear.”

The CCP regularly puts pressure on authorities in most of the countries where the show performs. Pressure usually comes through the use of its consulates, embassies, and community organizations, and aims to cancel the show.

Shen Yun takes as its mission to revive China’s artistic tradition that thrived before decades of suppression by the CCP. The show also includes dance programs set in contemporary China that portray the persecution of Falun Gong—a peaceful meditation practice persecuted by the regime since 1999. These portrayals are an irritant for CCP diplomats.

Polunin said that there was a letter from Ukraine’s foreign ministry requesting his organization not assist the Shen Yun show in Odessa. He said it was because of “political” issues.

Odessa officials told The Epoch Times in a private conversation that they also received letters from the Ukrainian prime minister, the minister of culture, and the head of the national security service not to let the show perform.

An Epoch Times reporter met with Vice Prime Minister of Ukraine Vladimir Seminozhenko, whose negative letter was among those from the top officials, to ask him about the situation. He denied any government involvement in the interference with the performance.

Ukrainian officials say that the pressure is connected to the official visit of China’s foreign minister, Yang Jieqi to Kyiv last week.

International Support

Vice President of European Parliament Edward McMillan-Scott has sent a letter to ask Ukraine’s president to let the Shen Yun perform in Ukraine.

Some members of Ukrainian Parliament, and members of the U.S. Congress also sent letters to Ukrainian officials to assist Shen Yun Performing Arts.

Human rights advocates have also condemned the Chinese diplomats’ interference with domestic affairs in Ukrainian. “This is brutal intervention and we can’t agree with it,” said Evgeniy Zakharov, the head of Kharkov human rights group in Ukraine.

Zakharov commented that the Chinese officials behave the same way as Soviet authorities who physically destroyed art and elements of culture. “Ukraine should respond if it considers itself to be a European civilized country,” he said.

Two performances of Shen Yun were canceled in Kyiv in April, last year, under the same scenario. Ukraine’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs did not grant visas to the show’s performers and the president’s office made the dates which Shen Yun was scheduled to perform unavailable at the country’s renowned theater, the National Palace Ukraine. Ukraine’s top officials declined to speak with The Epoch Times or the show’s organizers.

EP-vice-president-Shen-Yun-Prime-Minister-Ukraine

Flowers. Hugs. A letter from the EU to the PRC embassy – that’s how our Belgium run ended today in Louvain-La-Neuve.

Earlier this morning, our erhu virtuoso, Mei Xuan, and I visited the European Parliament to seek support for her husband, Jiang Feng. Jiang disappeared in China while boarding a flight in Shanghai on his (luckless) way to reunite with his wife in New Jersey. Mei Xuan believes he was abducted by secret 6-10 Office agents with the purpose of pressuring her to stop performing with Shen Yun.

We were warmly received by three people who are dedicating their careers to fighting for the rights of people they will probably never meet. They listened to Mei Xuan’s story –

how she and her husband were arrested when the persecution of Falun Gong first began; how he had been jailed for three years and, days before his release, she was picked up off the street and sentenced to four years; how she had been handcuffed to a chair for 75 days and not allowed to sleep; how she was tortured and knocked unconscious many times; how she saw her friends die in prison one after another; how she had escaped to the United States; how she and her husband, married for over ten years, had only been given a chance to spend a few months together; how they were to be reunited; how he disappeared, and how worried she is about him now, because she knows what they do to Falun Gong practitioners.

And when she was done with the basics, they simply told us – we would like to write a letter to the Chinese authorities about this case. We will draft it this afternoon.

We invited them to see our last performance in Louvain-La-Neuve, just outside Brussels, that night and rushed to the theater.

Mei Xuan played beautifully. She always does – an amazing feat considering she has no idea where her husband is and whether, while she is in the spotlight on the world’s most famous stages, her husband is under the interrogation lamp being tortured for a false confession.

But maybe it was something about having spent the day with her, translating her story, that made her moving music that much more stirring. Even the silent pauses between her notes were charged with conviction. The applause roared as she finished her own composition: “The Calling.”

Right after the show, at 11:00 pm, a security worker approached me backstage saying three people were waiting for Mei Xuan. As we worked our way around the curtain to the audience we saw our new friends with a beautiful bouquet of flowers. On top of the flowers was an envelope with a copy of the letter that they had already sent to the PRC Ambassador to the EU.

No one seemed wiling to part – they were touched by Mei Xuan and Mei Xuan was touched by their compassion and encouragement.

I must also mention that, while I didn’t have the honor to meet the representative, someone from Amnesty International also presented Mei Xuan with a flower bouquet at that how. Amnesty had just issued an “urgent action” about her husband’s case. The card on Amnesty’s flowers read: “We fully support you.”

Here’s a copy of the letter from the Chairwoman of the European Union’s Subcommittee on Human Rights Ms. Heidi Ms Hautala.

Ms Hautala wrote on 11 May a letter to the Ambassador of the People’s Republic of China to the EU expressing concern over the disappearance of Mr Jiang Feng.

AI URGENT ACTION FALUN GONG PRACTITIONER MISSING IN CHINA

Falun Gong practitioner Jiang Feng went missing in Shanghai on 18 February and is believed to be detained by the Chinese authorities. He is at risk of torture and other ill-treatment.

On 18 February, Jiang Feng went missing at Shanghai’s Pudong International Airport. He checked in for his flight to New York, but never boarded the flight. Airline staff said he was taken away by public security officials after passing  through the security check point.  The authorities have not told Jiang Feng’s family where he is held, and their efforts to obtain information from police in Shanghai about his whereabouts have failed. Friends in China believe he may have been taken to his home city of Hefei in Anhui province, hundreds of kilometres from Shanghai.

Jiang Feng had previously been imprisoned for three years from 1999 to 2002 for his Falun Gong spiritual practice. When he went missing, he was on his way to join his wife, Mei Xuan, a musician with the New York-based Shen Yun Performing Arts group. She fled to the United States in 2006, following her release from four years’ imprisonment in China for practising Falun Gong. Jiang Feng may have been detained in order to pressure her to cease her involvement with the Shen Yun Performing Arts group, as some of the group’s performances includes artistic representations of the persecution of the Falun Gong.

PLEASE WRITE IMMEDIATELY in English, Chinese or your own language:
Urging the authorities to reveal Jiang Feng’s whereabouts;
Calling for his immediate release unless charged with an internationally recognized crime;
Calling for a guarantee that he will not be tortured or otherwise ill-treated while he remains in custody.

PLEASE SEND APPEALS BEFORE 21 JUNE 2010 TO:
Director of the Anhui Provincial Department of Public Security
XU Liquan Tingzhang
Anhuisheng Gong’anting
282 Anqinglu
Hefeishi 230061
Anhuisheng
People’s Republic of China
Fax: +86 551 2801208
Salutation: Dear Director

Director of the Hefei City Public Security Bureau
Shouqunlu 290
Hefeishi  230041
Anhuisheng
People’s Republic of China
Salutation: Dear Director

And copies to:
Minister of Public Security of the People’s Republic of China
MENG Jianzhu Buzhang
Gong’anbu
14 Dongchang’anjie
Dongchengqu
Beijingshi 100741
People’s Republic of China
Salutation: Dear Minister

Also send copies to diplomatic representatives of China accredited to your country. Please check with your section office if sending appeals after the above date.

Amnesty International site

Supervisors’ chairman Norby is asked not to recognize upcoming events backed by Falun Gong supporters.

January 03, 2008|Christian Berthelsen | Times Staff Writer

The Chinese government has asked Orange County not to recognize two upcoming Chinese New Year performances backed by supporters of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, drawing a stern rebuke from the chairman of the county’s Board of Supervisors.

China regards the Falun Gong as a cult and a threat to the government, which outlawed the group in 1999. Falun Gong says it is an apolitical movement based on Chinese breathing exercises, and asserts its members have been persecuted.

In a Dec. 17 letter, China’s consulate general in Los Angeles said the Chinese New Year Spectacular events aimed to “defame China’s image in the international community and undermine the development of U.S.-China relations.” The letter compared Falun Gong to the Branch Davidians, which engaged federal agents in a standoff over illegal weapons stockpiles that killed 82 members near Waco, Texas, in 1993; and to the Peoples Temple, of which more than 900 members committed mass suicide in Guyana in 1978.

The Chinese New Year performances — Jan. 15 at the California Center for the Arts in Escondido and Jan. 18 at the Nokia Theatre in Los Angeles — are produced by New Tang Dynasty Television, a satellite station based in New York that says it offers views differing from the Chinese government’s.

A spokesman acknowledged that some of the station’s supporters are involved in Falun Gong and that a past show included an “interpretive” performance seemingly sympathetic to the group.

The letter offended Supervisor Chris Norby, the board chairman, to whom it was addressed. In an interview Wednesday, he said it amounted to “an attempt by a foreign government to dictate to American elected officials what organizations we should support, recognize or associate with.”

Norby said he had not brought up the matter with his colleagues on the board and had no plans to take official action in a board meeting. But he drafted a response to the consulate, saying: “Your letter is a formal request that the Orange County Board of Supervisors cooperate with your government’s suppression of Falun Gong. . . . I am personally insulted by your request and will certainly not honor it.”

It was not clear if the consulate’s letter was sent to Orange County as part of a mass mailing to local officials, or if Chinese envoys had a specific reason to target the board; though the letter was addressed to Norby, it was not signed.

A spokesman for the consulate did not return several telephone calls seeking comment. A spokesman for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa also did not return a call, and representatives of Yvonne B. Burke, chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, could not be reached.

The episode is yet another chapter in the back-and-forth between China and Falun Gong supporters in California. Falun Gong has been allowed to march in several parades but has been banned from others, including those in San Francisco, downtown Los Angeles and the San Gabriel Valley.

This week, Falun Gong supporters and other critics of China’s human rights record planned to protest a float in the Rose Parade celebrating Beijing’s staging of the 2008 Olympics; the protest largely fizzled.

In 2006, the Chinese consulate in San Francisco issued a statement warning supervisors there to “refrain from making any decisions that will cause harm to Sino-U.S. relations” when they were considering Falun Gong’s request to march in a Chinese New Year parade there. The group was allowed to march in 2004, but was denied subsequent permission.

MARY FITZGERALD Foreign Affairs Correspondent

THE CHINESE embassy in Dublin has circulated a letter to all foreign diplomatic missions in the city to “kindly remind” recipients not to attend a performance by a Falun Gong-linked performing arts company at the Grand Canal Theatre this weekend.

The New York-based Shen Yun company, due to perform two shows at the newly opened theatre tomorrow, bills its performances as a mix of traditional dance, mime and music. Most of the cast are members of the Falun Gong movement which is banned in China.

On the Grand Canal Theatre website, the show is described as “weaving a wondrous story of heavenly realms, enchanting dreams, and the classic struggle between good and evil . . . following the tragic erosion of traditional Chinese culture under decades of communist rule, [Shen Yun] endeavours to rediscover a lost artistic and cultural heritage”. According to reviews, the Shen Yun show also features scenes depicting the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners.

The Grand Canal Theatre website states that Shen Yun has performed to audiences totalling more than 800,000 people in 20countries across the world. This is its first show in Ireland.

Earlier this week, the Chinese embassy e-mailed a letter marked “urgent and important” to all embassies and consulates in Dublin. The letter, which has been obtained by The Irish Times , draws attention to Shen Yun’s links with Falun Gong and describes the latter as an “illegal” group. “The embassy kindly reminds you not to attend the show,” the letter, which was sent by ambassador Liu Biwei’s secretary, states.

According to the Shen Yun website, the Dublin performances are presented by the Irish Falun Dafa (Gong) Association. All inquiries related to the shows are directed to an Irish e-mail address.

[…]

AFP March 11, 2010 10:42am

A NEW York-based musician is appealling for help to find her husband who vanished as he boarded a flight from China to the United States amid fears he was seized for his Falungong beliefs.

Mei Xuan, who fled to the United States from China in 2007, said she went on February 18 to Newark Liberty International Airport to welcome her husband Jiang Feng who was due on a flight from Shanghai.

But he never arrived and phone calls went unanswered. Mei said she confirmed that the 42-year-old Jiang had checked in to the Continental Airlines flight and concluded that he disappeared between security and the boarding gate.

“I’m very, very worried for him,” Mei told AFP on a recent visit to Washington, where she was seeking help from lawmakers.

“Because we both practice Falungong, we have experienced this before and know they can just take you away,” she said. “I thought we could finally be together. We want to have a baby.”

Mei plays the erhu, a Chinese stringed instrument, in the Shen Yun ensemble, which incorporates Falungong themes. The troupe was recently in the spotlight when members said they were denied visas to perform in Hong Kong.

China outlawed Falungong — a spiritual movement loosely based on Buddhist, Taoist and Confucian philosophies – in 1999 following a silent mass gathering in Beijing by its members. China denounces the group as an “evil cult”.

The New York-based Falun Dafa Information Centre, which supports Falungong’s rights, said it had information that Jiang was taken to his native Anhui province where agents are trying to force him to renounce his beliefs.

Mei, who uses an alias for security reasons, said she and her husband suffered abuse in lengthy previous spells in detention.

In one incident, Mei said plain-clothes police shoved her into a car as she waited on the street for a taxi. She said she was then handcuffed to a chair and deprived of sleep for two and a half months.

“The only reason was because I practice Falungong,” she said. “I didn’t want to give up my beliefs so they just tortured me physically and mentally.”

“My feet were so swollen I couldn’t put on any shoes.”

The Falun Dafa Information Centre appealed for international pressure to ensure Jiang’s “immediate release and safe passage to the United States”.