According to an investigation, the Chinese Ambassador to Spain has admitted pressuring the Royal Theater in Madrid to cancel the show. In a recorded, investigative phone call, the Ambassador spoke of personally visiting Royal Theater to convey the message. The shows were subsequently canceled.<\/p>\n
Just weeks before Shen Yun was set to perform for the first time in Madrid, the shows were suddenly canceled. The theater claimed the cancelation was due to \u201ctechnical difficulties,\u201d but organizers said that\u2019s the excuse usually given whenever the Chinese embassy is the real reason.<\/p>\n
With three performances scheduled Jan. 31-Feb. 2, the Royal Theater director sent a letter on Jan. 7 canceling the shows. The explanation given was that there was an \u201cunavoidable artistic needs of the stage space\u201d for a production of Das Rheingold. However, that production was already scheduled when the contracts with Shen Yun were signed and it was not perceived to be a problem then.<\/p>\n
In a press release, Shen Yun\u2019s local presenter, Puro Arte Humano, said it was confident \u201cthe Chinese Embassy has pressured the Madrid Coliseum to achieve the cancellation of the show, something that they already tried in Barcelona without success in 2014.\u201d<\/p>\n
This turned out to be the case. On Jan. 22, the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) placed a call to the Chinese Embassy in Spain. The investigator used a tactic WOIPFG had successfully developed while investigating organ harvesting in China, and posed as a high-ranking CCP official calling for information. He got through to the Ambassador.<\/p>\n
On the other end of the line, the person identified himself as PRC Ambassador L\u00fc Fan, according to a press release issued by WOIPFG<\/a>, which includes a recording of the call<\/a>. The Ambassador then went on to describe how he had succeeded in talking the theater manager into canceling the Shen Yun shows.<\/p>\n The theater manager initially resisted but Ambassador L\u00fc insisted, according to the recording.<\/p>\n \u201cI told him not to think only about the economic income\u00a0but also politics,\u201d the Ambassador reportedly said. \u201cWhen you work with China by signing the \u2018International League of Theaters of the Silk Road,\u2019 you have a great potential in the Chinese market.\u201d<\/p>\n Some 900 tickets had already been sold at the time the shows were canceled.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" According to an investigation, the Chinese Ambassador to Spain has admitted pressuring the Royal Theater in Madrid to cancel the show. In a recorded, investigative phone call, the Ambassador spoke of personally visiting Royal Theater to convey the message. The shows were subsequently canceled. Just weeks before Shen Yun was set to perform for the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301"}],"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=301"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/301\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=301"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=301"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/leeshailemish.com\/on-shen-yun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=301"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}