(Clearwisdom.net) On June 22, 2005, in response to the recent exposure of a large Chinese spy network in Canada and extensive monitoring and harassment of practitioners, Edmonton practitioners held a press conference at city hall to recount practitioners' personal experiences. Meanwhile, practitioners also informed the public about the recent death of Shenyang practitioner Gao Rongrong. While strongly condemning the murder, practitioners also called upon the Canadian public to take concrete actions to stop the persecution.
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The press conference
At the beginning of the press conference, a representative of local practitioners read a statement by the Edmonton Falun Dafa Association regarding the recent spy charges. The statement stressed the practitioners' concern over the CCP's spy network and called upon the Alberta Provincial and Edmonton governments to conduct a thorough investigation of all of the CCP's illegal activities aiming at monitoring and harassing practitioners as well as spreading hate propaganda against Falun Gong.
Several western and Chinese practitioners then shared their personal stories, which strongly support the idea that CCP has a large spy network in Canada. For example, Ms. Chen said that she couldn't go back to China to visit her family members and had been monitored and harassed since she gave an interview to local reporters on Falun Gong. It was apparent that Chinese agents had thereafter added her name to their "blacklist" of practitioners.
Ms. Chen said that the Chinese security department had tried to threaten her through several channels and alleged knowing about all her activities and personal information. Furthermore, Chen said that some of her friends and even friends in Canada and business clients had been harassed by the CCP. All these facts support the charge that the CCP is using a massive spy network through which the party has been violating practitioners' privacy and security.
Chen stressed that the Chinese spies' harassment to practitioners personal and business network is just an extension of the CCP's policy to "defame their [practitioners] reputation, bankrupt them financially and destroy them physically" to overseas.
In her speech, Chen also mentioned that she suddenly received large amount of vicious harassing phone calls from China at the beginning of this year. To her surprise, the police couldn't take proper action against such an obvious crime. She said that she would report this incident to legislative representatives so that they can take proper measures to restrain such activities.
Practitioner Huang shared how he was fired by the Alberta government for clarifying the truth to visiting Heilongjiang provincial officials. Another western practitioner shared how officials of the Chinese consulate at Calgary had used different channels and measures to distribute fabricated materials to defame Falun Gong.
According to the Edmonton Sun, Const. Stephen Camp of the Edmonton Police Service hate crimes unit confirmed on June 22 that his office had just wrapped up an investigation into booklets distributed in the city in 2004 by Chinese consular officials. Camp told Edmonton Sun: "... if we feel someone's distributing hate propaganda in our city, we move forward. It doesn't matter who they are or who they work for."
Practitioners at the press conference called upon Canadian federal, provincial and municipal governments to face the espionage activities of the CCP against Canadian-Chinese residents, especially Falun Gong practitioners. They urged the government not to be blinded by commercial interests and take determined actions to stop the CCP's harassment and persecution of Canadian practitioners.
During the press conference, practitioners also informed the media about the recent murder of Ms. Gao Rongrong, whose face was disfigured by brutal electric shock torture several months ago.
Edmonton Sun, the Epoch Times and CBC TV attended the press conference.
