{"id":182,"date":"2011-02-11T06:37:43","date_gmt":"2011-02-11T06:37:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/?p=182"},"modified":"2011-02-23T02:09:10","modified_gmt":"2011-02-23T02:09:10","slug":"new-zealand-officials-outraged","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/2011\/02\/11\/new-zealand-officials-outraged\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand Officials Outraged"},"content":{"rendered":"

(\u00e4\u00b8\u00ad\u00e6\u2013\u2021\u00ef\u00bc\u0161\u00e6\u2013\u00b0\u00e8\u00a5\u00bf\u00e5\u2026\u00b0\u00e5\u00ae\u02dc\u00e5\u2018\u02dc\u00e7\u0161\u201e\u00e6\u201e\u00a4\u00e6\u20ac\u2019<\/a>\u00ef\u00bc\u2030<\/p>\n

New Zealand Parliament Member Keith Locke and Auckland Council Member Cathy Casey are furious at Chinese letters they have received denigrating Shen Yun Performing Arts and warning them not to attend the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shows.<\/p>\n

Ahead of Shen Yun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s February 3-5 performances in Auckland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Aotea Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ASB Theatre, the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s City Council members received a letter from the consulate of the People\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Republic of China. The letter, dated December 31, 2010 and signed by Consular General Liao Juhua, concludes: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You are kindly requested to stay away from the event and thank you for reading this letter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

While at least one City Councilor thought the letter was a joke, City Councilor Cathy Casey took exception to the letter and exposed it. She filed a formal complaint with the head of the consular corps in Auckland and also posted and subjected it to ridicule on her Facebook page.<\/p>\n

\u00e2\u20ac\u0153Nobody tells me to go or not go to a production at the Aotea Centre,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Casey said on New Zealand\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s 3News<\/a>. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153China has its own rules. We are a democracy, we have freedom of speech, freedom of association. This breaks every rule.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

According to 3News, all 20 council members received the Consul General\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s letter. Casey wants an apology. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153This is breach of the partnership between council and the diplomatic corps,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she told The Epoch Times<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

On January 24, Parliament Member Keith Locke of New Zealand\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Green Party received a different letter. The letter had a similar message, but was signed by 29-Auckland based Chinese organizations asking him not to attend the performance. In a press release posted on the Green Party website<\/a>, Locke said he is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153concerned that some Chinese organisations in Auckland may be acting in league with the Auckland consulate in this matter.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

In an interview with NTDTV, MP Locke objected to this type of foreign pressure. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s the sort of censorship that goes on in China, but it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not the sort of censorship we should have here in New Zealand.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n

The letter is on file and available upon request<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Note: On February 17, a “Spring Fantasy” gala, a performance supported by the Auckland Chinese consulate that also featured a speech by State Council Overseas Chinese Affairs Office <\/em>Vice Director Xu Yousheng, was held at the same ASB Theatre.<\/p>\n

(\u00e4\u00b8\u00ad\u00e6\u2013\u2021\u00ef\u00bc\u0161\u00e6\u2013\u00b0\u00e8\u00a5\u00bf\u00e5\u2026\u00b0\u00e5\u00ae\u02dc\u00e5\u2018\u02dc\u00e7\u0161\u201e\u00e6\u201e\u00a4\u00e6\u20ac\u2019<\/a>\u00ef\u00bc\u2030<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(\u00e4\u00b8\u00ad\u00e6\u2013\u2021\u00ef\u00bc\u0161\u00e6\u2013\u00b0\u00e8\u00a5\u00bf\u00e5\u2026\u00b0\u00e5\u00ae\u02dc\u00e5\u2018\u02dc\u00e7\u0161\u201e\u00e6\u201e\u00a4\u00e6\u20ac\u2019\u00ef\u00bc\u2030 New Zealand Parliament Member Keith Locke and Auckland Council Member Cathy Casey are furious at Chinese letters they have received denigrating Shen Yun Performing Arts and warning them not to attend the company\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s shows. Ahead of Shen Yun\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s February 3-5 performances in Auckland\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Aotea Center\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s ASB Theatre, the capital\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s City Council members received a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=182"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/182\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=182"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=182"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=182"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}