A NSW state politician and a former Chinese diplomat were among the speakers at a Sydney rally supporting the over 20 million people who have quit from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
"Some people question the figure of 20 million quitting the CCP," said Chen Yonglin the high profile Chinese diplomat who himself quit from the communist party in 2005 after leaving his post at the Chinese Consulate in Sydney.
"The figure I want to say is the true figure—[most] people use an alias to quit the CCP [but] I hope that more and more people will use their true name to quit the CCP," he told approximately 500 people attending the rally held at Hyde Park on Saturday April 14.
While Mr Chen said there are reportedly 70 million Party members, he thought there was still more work to be done. "The 20 million is still a small number—we still need to work hard on our campaign against the CCP."
In-between speeches, a Chinese national, Tom Chen, who had recently fled China, declared his withdrawal from one of the organisations affiliated with the CCP.
Law Professor Yuan Hong Bin who sought asylum in Australia in 2005 told the rally that such withdrawals were ongoing inside China: "[It] is a big campaign and has great momentum—millions of people are awakening and withdrawing from the Communist party.
"I believe a new China without communism will come soon…this Quit the CCP movement is leading towards a new China without communism."
The withdrawals began in November 2004 on a website dedicated to the purpose and via Quit CCP service centres established around the world. There have also been ongoing reports of withdrawals posted in public places throughout China.
NSW MP, Ian Cohen offered his and the Greens party's support for the withdrawals, which he said was reminiscent [of] people's movement in East Germany that led to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989.
"I think the fact that so many people quit the [Chinese] Communist Party, Mr Cohen said, is 'because it is a party without a heart and it is an organisation that is rotten to the core.'"
Like other speeches made during the rally, Mr Cohen addressed why change was needed and that further efforts are needed to effect further developments for an open and democratic China.
The upcoming Beijing Olympics, Mr Cohen said, offers an opportunity to highlight the human rights abuses committed inside China and the ongoing and largely unchecked environmental degradation that he described as "catastrophic".
Phil Glendenning, Director of the Edmund Rice Centre, the human rights body for the Catholic Church, said: "As we saw in Eastern Europe and as we saw in the Philippines and as we saw in South Africa and as we saw in East Timor—you cannot stop an idea whose time has come."
Mr Glendenning stated that the world needs a strong and independent China that positively engages with the world.
A China he said that "enables and recognises and allows people to follow their own spiritual path, rather that to prevent them from practising their spiritual beliefs, we want a church in China that can be above the ground and not under ground – where people have been forced to hide, those practices we need to leave behind in the century that has past."
Mr Glendenning is also the leader of the NSW delegation of the Coalition to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong that is currently investigating reports of forced organ harvesting from imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners detained in China.
"And the bottom line is," he told the rally, "the practice of illegal organ harvesting, and the practice of rounding up [Falun Gong practitioners], who have a simple faith based in compassion, honesty and forbearance, and [then] putting them into detention centres has to stop!
"The practice in rounding up people who believe in a particular God who have been forced to practise that under ground has to stop! We need China to be the China it has been for centuries and for millennia – we don't need a China of tyranny we don't need a China of oppression, we don't need a China that instils fear into politicians right across the world."
Also giving speeches were Scott Chen from the Sydney Quit from CCP Service Centre, human rights activist and poet Michael Darby, Nhan Tran the Vice-President, Australian Vietnamese Community NSW Branch, Roy L. Howarth from the Australia Tibet Council, Fang Yuan the President of the Chinese Labour Party, Tracy De Geer from the Universal Peace Federation.
Statements of support were written by Senator Kerry Nettle and NSW MLC Dr Gordon Moyes.
After the speeches the rally's participants held a parade through the centre of the Sydney CBD through Chinatown finishing outside the Entertainment Centre.
There will be a rally to support the 20 million who have quit the CCP, which will be held in Melbourne this Saturday April 21, 1pm at City Square.
Similar events have been occurring globally.