(Clearwisdom.net) It might have been sometime during the first ten days of September last year that a black bag of mine, in which there were various documents, was stolen when my wife Li Jinyu and I were traveling. Since my passport and other important documents had been stolen, on December 16, 2003 I went to the Chinese Consulate in Toronto to apply for a new passport. That was the first time that I personally saw an evil poster slandering Falun Gong hanging openly on a wall of the passport office. In this democratic and free land of Canada, there appeared this kind of propaganda aimed to stir up hatred. At the same time, the idea came to me to clarify the truth inside the Consulate.
Knowing that I am a Falun Gong practitioner, the consulate officer didn't give me a receipt for my application, as she should usually do. So, I talked to her to clarify the truth on two occasions.
I also sent faxes to them from my home. The last time, I went there together with my wife. The Chinese Consulate had never mentioned giving me a new passport and had never even given me a receipt. This gave me a good chance to clarify the truth. The personnel at the Chinese Consulate, however, contacted the police. After a misunderstanding arose between the police and us, I asked an officer from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police: "Having my passport stolen, I went to the Chinese Consulate to apply for a new one since I am a Chinese citizen. However, purely because I am a Falun Gong practitioner, the Chinese Consulate officer took my passport with my application without giving me a receipt. Then, it seemed reasonable to tell her the facts about Falun Gong and hope that she would not be deceived by the contents of the poster, which was there to incite hatred. But the Chinese Consulate called you and told you that I was making trouble inside the Consulate. How would you handle this issue?" The Royal officer said, "First of all, I think you should get your passport."
In the morning of January 27, 2004, the Chinese Consulate called me saying that during the Spring Festival they had called me several times and failed to reach me. They told me that my stolen passport, driver's license and marriage certificate had been turned in to the Consulate. Since I had applied for a new passport before, the old passport had already been canceled and the new one was ready for me. They asked me to go there to collect it, along with a processing fee. So I made an appointment at 2:00 p.m. to go to the Consulate. The officer on duty said, "Since you were not given a number when you applied, you may not go to the passport office. You can go to the reception room instead." So I went to the reception room of the Consulate at about 2:00 p.m. and told a worker there, "My name is Lin Shenli, and I came here for my passport." He asked me to wait for a while and I sat down on a sofa. After a while, a man with a smile on his face asked me to come in. At first glance, I recognized him to be someone I met when I had gone to the Consulate to clarify the truth. Then, I looked at him and looked around inside the room. He said, "Don't be scared." I said, "I am not frightened," and thought it was just a good chance to clarify the truth. I followed him to a small meeting room on the second floor. Then, an officer came in with my lost passport and other documents asking me to sign my name for getting them back. I gave him the processing fee for my new passport and asked if we were going together to get it. He said, "I will bring it to you and you may just sit here." At that time, the officer who asked me in, had made a pot of tea and sat down on a sofa beside me. He gave me a name card and I found from the card that he is an Associate Consul General. He told me that we might have a chat while they were taking care of my new passport. Then we started chatting.
He apologized for his bad attitude when we met the last time. I said, "As a practitioner, we don't mind it and we just want to have you know the truth about Falun Gong." He said, "Due to our different environments and experience, we might have different opinions on some issues but we may still find some common understanding between us. As an officer of the Consulate, we try to do our best to help and care for overseas Chinese citizens as we are all Chinese people." I replied, "What you said is very true. An overseas governmental organization should help and care for its nation's citizens. However, I felt that some officers working here do not behave like this. For instance, when I applied for a new passport, my application had been taken but I got no receipt. What is the reason for this? Is it because I am a Falun Gong practitioner?" He said he didn't know.
I told him, "We can have different beliefs and different opinions on any issue, but you cannot discriminate against or even persecute people with different beliefs just because you have a belief different from theirs. Jiang Zemin's persecution of Falun Gong is based on lies and slander, is cruelly killing Falun Gong practitioners, and is aided by propaganda inciting hatred, just like the poster hanging on the wall of your passport office." He said, "Since you have mentioned that poster, I can, by the way, tell you a secret: we have been thinking of removing that poster for a long time. However, if you make trouble here we will find it hard to do." I said, "Please don't call it making trouble when Falun Gong practitioners clarify the truth. The other day when we told people the facts about Falun Gong in the passport office, you were there watching. You have seen that we were very rational and peaceful. On the contrary, the officers of your consulate were cursing us loudly and trying to push us out of there." I continued, "That poster has been hanging on the wall for almost two years. Is it reasonable that you said you have been thinking of removing it for such a long time?" He said, "We are all Chinese and should maintain a good image." I told him, "What you said is very true and we should maintain the image of the Chinese nation, and we should win the respect of the world's people. However, the poster in the passport office is damaging the image of the Chinese nation. Pan Xinchun (an associate Consul General) even publicly instigated hatred, bringing himself to trial. All of this is damaging the image of the Chinese nation." He said, "In any case, I have told you the secret and hope that you will not come again to make trouble. Otherwise, it is hard to remove the poster since our consulate also needs a ladder to go down in order to save face."
I said, "We are practitioners and we have been improving ourselves to become good people according to the requirement of Truthfulness-Compassion-Tolerance. We have never tried to make deals with the government or any individual. What we are doing is just clarifying the truth and letting people know the truth. As to how people would handle the matter, it is their own choice. The poster in the passport office is not only stirring up hatred, but also violating Canadian law, to which the Canadian government will not turn a blind eye." He said, "Many things in China had been improved. For example, the policy of forced-labor-education has been reformed. Now, the police do not have the power to send anyone to forced labor camp, only the judge of a court can do that. We should be forward-looking." I said, "The present government is relatively enlightened and we never opposed the government. Not long ago, Wen Jiabao was even welcomed by Falun Gong practitioners when he was visiting North America. What we oppose is the persecution of Falun Gong and Jiang's gang who started this persecution. Some positive reform measures seem very good to me. However, we cannot just make changes for the sake of a good appearance. Now in China, it happens every day that police arrest Falun Gong practitioners at will. Under Jiang's genocidal policy of 'ruining their reputation, cutting off their economic resource, destroying their physical bodies' and 'beating to death is nothing, just cremate their bodies without identifying their names and where they live,' they are rampantly killing Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong practitioners can be illegally sent to forced labor camp at any time by policemen. To truly rule the country by law, it is not enough just to shout slogans; we should have people feel it."
Our chatting had been friendly and peaceful, without argument or hostility. In an atmosphere of tea-drinking and chatting, we finished our conversation. Upon saying good-bye, he said that I could call him if I ever needed anything.
The above is a brief explanation of the situation I experienced when I went to the Chinese Consulate several times to clarify the truth. My overall feeling is that after practitioners' clarifying the truth, the effect of choking the evil behind the personnel in the Chinese Consulate is obvious, and the breakthrough on certain matters is also easy to see. The poster poisoning common people is shaking and teetering. Of course, the officers and workers in the Chinese Consulate still do not have a deep enough understanding of Falun Gong; there are still many barriers blocking them. I hope that all of us will keep clarifying the truth to them with a deeper and broader measure.
