Chinese defectors Chen Yonglin and Hao Fengjun joined hundreds of demonstrators in a rally in Sydney’s Chinatown on Saturday, September 10 calling for more people to withdraw their membership from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The rally marked the point where on August 5 the withdrawals from the CCP passed four million, out of sixty million-odd members.
Former Chinese diplomat Chen Yonglin told the rally that the Chinese Communist Party has deprived Chinese people of all their basic rights, including the right to withdraw their party membership.
Mr Chen abandoned his post as First Secretary at the Sydney Chinese Consulate-General earlier this year, and went public with startling revelations that the Chinese government had more than 1000 spies operating in Australia.
“During the ruling of the Chinese Communist Party in China, they have killed 80 million innocent Chinese people, [they have] …carried out the mental control of the Chinese people, and also destroyed 5000 years of Chinese civilisation and culture,” he told the rally.
“According to official statistics of the Chinese government, every year now they have more than 74000 riots. So now, the Chinese Communist Regime is facing the big protest of the Chinese people.
“We all have basic human rights that are endowed by the heavens. So we have eyes, we have ears, we have a mouth, we can speak, we can hear, and people are endowed to exercise this right to speak. But the Chinese Communist Regime even deprives Chinese people freedom of expression and freedom to speak.”
The second defector Hao Fenjun, a former 6-10 security officer who witnessed torture of Falun Gong practitioners in China, delivered a short speech calling on more people to withdraw their party membership.
“So today is a rally that celebrates and supports that more than four million Chinese people have quit from the Chinese Communist Party. This number of quitting from the CCP membership has increased very quickly,” he said through a translator.
“I believe this number will continue increasing very quickly. I also would like to wish that more and more people will have the chance to choose whether to quit from the party.
“I also hope those Chinese spies and other people who work for the Chinese Communist Party can choose to leave and quit from the party as soon as possible before its collapse.”
Alex Leszinski, from the Refugee Action Coalition, likened his father’s fleeing from Communist Poland to the many Chinese people today seeking asylum in Australia.
“Currently at the moment, the largest group of people in detention in Australia are asylum seekers from the People’s Republic of China. Over 220 people currently in detention,” Mr Leszinski said.
“And this is a disgrace, that a country like Australia, which claims to have a decent human rights record, has thrown people who have fled the horrible communist regime of China into detention.
“Not only however are they being thrown into detention. In some cases they actually find themselves being interrogated and interviewed in detention by officials from the Communist Party in China. As I’ve said, this is a disgrace, and it is shameful behaviour, that our government, that John Howard, is doing this.”
Also giving speeches were NSW MP Ian Cohen from the Australian Greens, well-known Chinese Law Professor Yuan Hongbing, and radio personality Michael Darby. A speech also was read on behalf of Democrats Senator Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans.
Michael Darby said that he was happy to know that in the future, China would be a free country.
“That should be the greatest ambition for every Australian, to know that our huge neighbour to our north, China, will be a country where every individual is free to practise his or her beliefs without fear of the Communist Party. And your meeting here today makes a very big step in that direction. I congratulate you all,” he said.
The event was co-hosted by Free China and the Quit the Communist Party Association.
The withdrawals from the CCP began in December last year in response to The Epoch Times’ editorial series: Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, a historical account of the CCP’s advocacy of killing and deception. Withdrawal notices by CCP members are made on the internet, over the phone, and at various “Quit the CCP” desks in public places internationally.
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