About 2,000 Falun Gong practitioners staged a march in Taipei City yesterday in support of the nearly 70 million people they claim have dropped out of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 2005.
Holding banners that read “support China’s human rights = support Taiwan’s freedom” and “only with the disintegration of the CCP can the persecution be stopped,” demonstrators gathered on Ketagalan Boulevard to denounce criminal acts allegedly carried out by the Chinese authoritarian regime against Falun Gong practitioners, including harvesting organs from living people.
Chang Ching-hsi (張清溪), chairman of the Taiwanese Falun Dafa Association, said the CCP regime was bound to collapse.
PHOTO: PICHI CHUANG, REUTERS
“Before the CCP falls apart, we want to expose the despicable deeds of the evil organization,” he said. “We call on those who still hold illusions about the CCP regime to see it for what it really is and withdraw from the party and its sub-organizations.”
Chang said China was full of lies and violence. Over the past 30 years it has grown economically, creating a delusion that the CCP has changed and that China is wealthier and stronger, he said.
“In fact, the CCP has not changed a bit,” he said. “It is still an evil party that is violent and autocratic. China’s economic boom makes the government wealthy, but its people are still poor. China appears strong, but actually it has many problems.”
Citing the book Bloody Harvest: The Killing of Falun Gong for Their Organs, Chang quoted the two Canadian writers as saying the practice was “a new form of evil on the planet” and that the two authors believed such practices still occur.
Hou Nien-tsu (侯念祖), a Taiwan representative of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, alleged that since the CCP was established more than 60 years ago, it has caused the deaths of 80 million people in China. What was more appalling was the way it coerced the Chinese people to commit evil acts so they could not oppose the party and therefore strengthened the vile regime, he said.
Since the establishment of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party in February 2005, Hou said about 70 million Chinese have quit the CCP. Many people withdrew through e-mail, telephone, chat room or instant messaging systems, he said.
Because of the accessibility of the Internet and availability of information, more and more people have left the CCP, from several thousand to 60,000 per day, Hou said.
There are more and more people willing to use their real name, he said.
“Our goal is to see the CCP disintegrate peacefully,” he said.
Tseng Wen-chung (曾文中), who joined yesterday’s march with his family and two children, said only with the demise of the CCP could China become a free and democratic country.
“I believe tyranny is bound to crumble,” he said. “China’s rise is superficial. It has many internal problems, including unfair distribution of wealth and the suppression of human rights and religion.”
Tseng said he joined the Falun Gong about nine years ago mainly because he was curious about China’s suppression of Falun Gong practitioners.
“The Chinese government should realize that the more it persecutes people, the more it internationalizes the issue, and the more people want to know about Falun Gong,” he said.
After benefiting physically and mentally from it, Tseng said he introduced it to his family, including his mother, wife and two children.
Tseng said there were only several thousand practitioners when Falun Gong was first introduced to Taiwan in 1999, but now the number has skyrocketed to between 400,000 and 500,000.
ENTERTAINERS IN CHINA: Taiwanese generally back the government being firm on infiltration and ‘united front’ work,’ the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association said Most people support the government probing Taiwanese entertainers for allegedly “amplifying” the Chinese Communist Party’s propaganda, a survey conducted by the Asia-Pacific Elite Interchange Association showed on Friday. Public support stood at 56.4 percent for action by the Mainland Affairs Council and the Ministry of Culture to enhance scrutiny on Taiwanese performers and artists who have developed careers in China while allegedly adhering to the narrative of Beijing’s propaganda that denigrates or harms Taiwanese sovereignty, the poll showed. Thirty-three percent did not support the action, it showed. The poll showed that 51.5 percent of respondents supported the government’s investigation into Taiwanese who have
South Korean K-pop girl group Blackpink are to make Kaohsiung the first stop on their Asia tour when they perform at Kaohsiung National Stadium on Oct. 18 and 19, the event organizer said yesterday. The upcoming performances will also make Blackpink the first girl group ever to perform twice at the stadium. It will be the group’s third visit to Taiwan to stage a concert. The last time Blackpink held a concert in the city was in March 2023. Their first concert in Taiwan was on March 3, 2019, at NTSU Arena (Linkou Arena). The group’s 2022-2023 “Born Pink” tour set a
A Philippine official has denied allegations of mistreatment of crew members during Philippine authorities’ boarding of a Taiwanese fishing vessel on Monday. Philippine Bureau of Fisheries and Aquatic Resources (BFAR) spokesman Nazario Briguera on Friday said that BFAR law enforcement officers “observed the proper boarding protocols” when they boarded the Taiwanese vessel Sheng Yu Feng (昇漁豐號) and towed it to Basco Port in the Philippines. Briguera’s comments came a day after the Taiwanese captain of the Sheng Yu Feng, Chen Tsung-tun (陳宗頓), held a news conference in Pingtung County and accused the Philippine authorities of mistreatment during the boarding of
88.2 PERCENT INCREASE: The variants driving the current outbreak are not causing more severe symptoms, but are ‘more contagious’ than previous variants, an expert said Number of COVID-19 cases in the nation is surging, with the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) describing the ongoing wave of infections as “rapid and intense,” and projecting that the outbreak would continue through the end of July. A total of 19,097 outpatient and emergency visits related to COVID-19 were reported from May 11 to Saturday last week, an 88.2 percent increase from the previous week’s 10,149 visits, CDC data showed. The nearly 90 percent surge in case numbers also marks the sixth consecutive weekly increase, although the total remains below the 23,778 recorded during the same period last year,
RSS