The Epoch Times: Calls for Foreign Minister to Cease Ban

By Ben Hurley

Jun 14, 2005

After three years of not being allowed to appeal with banners outside the Chinese Embassy by the Minister for Foreign Affairs Mr. Alexander Downer, Australian Falun Gong practitioners have now begun an indefinite appeal outside the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) office in Canberra.

According to ABC TV's Asia Pacific program, each month Mr. Alexander Downer signs a certificate banning Falun Gong signage because they would "impair the dignity of the mission."

The banners called for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, with messages such as "stop the killing", and "Truth, Compassion, Tolerance", the three principles of Falun Gong.

Australian Falun Gong spokesperson Mr. John Deller says local practitioners felt the public needed to know about the ban put in place by Mr. Downer. "Basically practitioners are appealing in front of DFAT because the certificates have been re-issued every month for 39 months, and practitioners really wish to raise people's awareness about that," he said.

Mr. Downer instigated the ban after the 2002 trade visit by Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan, who publicly requested the appeal be stopped.

Mr. Downer told a journalist in March that he was honoring Australia's international commitments while human rights groups, opposition senators and Falun Gong practitioners say it is another example of the Federal Government kowtowing to the communist regime for trade purposes.

Mr. Deller said "The practitioners who appeal opposite the Chinese Embassy never interfere with the function of the Embassy, never shout loud slogans, never do anything to what we would normally see as political interference," he said. "People are peacefully meditating, quietly showing banners and signs to people who pass by or Chinese tourists."

The ABC's television report said that "Australia is the only democracy in the world" to implement such restrictions.

"For what appears to be our national benefit in trade, our principles are being abandoned, and that's a really serious thing," Mr. Deller said.

Falun Gong is a Chinese meditation practice based on slow movements and the principles of truth, compassion and tolerance.

During the time of the Mr. Downer's restrictions, more than 2234 Falun Gong practitioners have been tortured to death in China, in the ongoing state-sanctioned campaign to eradicate the practice, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center. Among the dead are relatives of Australian citizens.

In July 1999 the Chinese Communist Party outlawed the practice after official estimates found that there were between 70 and 100 million people who practiced Falun Gong.

http://english.epochtimes.com/news/5-6-14/29197.html

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