BBC Monitoring: Thousands Rally In Taiwan Against Chinese Communist Party

December 2, 2006 Saturday

(Clearwisdom.net) Taipei, 2 December: Thousands of Taiwanese rallied in a parade in Panchiao, Taipei County Saturday [2 December] to oppose persecution in China and voice support for a movement urging Chinese to withdraw membership from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

"In two years, almost 16 million Chinese people have submitted statements withdrawing from the CCP or its affiliated organizations. The numbers show the Chinese have spurned the CCP because of its severe persecution inside China and repeated violations of human rights," said Lee Ching-mei, a parade spokeswoman.

During the rally, Falun Gong members carried out an exercise that uses five meditations, and something the Chinese government deems an illegal activity.

The parade was the second time a massive Taiwan rally was organized in support of the secession movement since The Epoch Times, a Falun Gong affiliation newspaper, published "Nine Commentaries on the CCP" and launched the movement in 2004, Lee said.

Braving the cold air and light rain, participants held cardboard and banners with anti-CCP slogans, which included "CCP is not China," "Oppose organ harvesting," "Support Chinese human rights activists," and "A democratic China will not exist before the elimination of the CCP."

History shows in Russia, more than 4.2 million members withdrew from the Communist Party before the Soviet Union finally collapsed in 1991. And the CCP may collapse as well, with the secession movement gaining steam, said Li Dayong, who works for the Global Service Center for Quitting CCP.

Li said most people don't realize that behind all the rapid economic growth and development of big cities, the Chinese government has illegally kidnapped and detained dissidents, writers and reporters, suppressed Falun Gong members, and ignored the problems of corruption, discontinued education, unemployment and an ineffective health care system, among many other areas.