by Russel Norman
Wellington City Council have kicked Falun Gong out of the Cuba Street parade, after previously allowing them in. The word is that the Council told them that the Chinese Embassy had paid for the big Chinese New Year celebration and the Chinese Embassy did not want Falun Gong in the parade, so they had to go.
Now whatever you might think about Falun Gong, surely they have a right to be in the Cuba Carnival parade.
If the story is accurate then the City Council is bending to the will of a foreign government to suppress freedom of expression in return for money.
I should add that the Green Party has also been excluded from the parade, an exclusion we disagree with. But the situation with the Falun Gong is worse because of the involvement of a foreign government.
From memory, the last time a foreign government did something like this it was when the US Embassy provided assistance to United Future in the 2002 election (which Dunne admitted in a later book by Auckland Uni academic Raymond Miller).
Published in Environment & Resource Management by Russel Norman on Sat, February 24th, 2007
Tags: environment
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on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
WCC and the Cuba Street Carnival has a history of not letting politics get in the way of the public good. First it was the anti-bypass people banned, then it was the Libz declined for a stall, now it’s the Greens and the Falun Gong show disallowed.
That didn’t stop me and a few friends from collecting around 500 signatures today for the petition in support of Met Turei’s Medicinal Cannabis Bill though. Here’s to very civil disobedience!
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Well, I was at Cuba Carnival, and Falun Dafa (which is the same as Falun Gong, I think) had a place in the parade.
So either WCC relented, or they forgot to tell the parade organisers
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Repton, that’s good news. Maybe they backed down!
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We (anti-motorway campaign) were banned last time, and just gate crashed it anyway, so maybe the council decided it wasn’t worth the trouble.
There were complaints from people this time about an army LAV being included in the parade – not exactly the sort of thing that suits the ‘Cuba Street culture’. It’s pretty much a capitalist event nowadays, not much community involvement.
Last time I recall this sort of thing happening was last October when Phil Goff kept a trade negotiations meeting with Chinese officials secret to prevent protest. NGOs were previously told shortly before this that nothing was happening on the NZ-China Free Trade Agreement.
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Yep, Sam, nothin like a little guerilla stall to keep activists happy!
We did end up running a small Green stall near the office for several sunny hours, which engendered lots of tourists/backpackers stopping for a chat, including a Canadian on a cycle tour of NZ, and quite a few assorted Germans, Poms and Aussies. Plus some local Green visitors, well met, livened the day!
Thanks to Iona, and my many helpers, including Hamish, the redoubtable Eva, Paul, Nick and some I can’t quite recall today (uni orientation is catchin up on me..)
it was quiet a few times, so you broke the monotony in the early stages!
And a shout out to Ben, thanks for talkin to me each time you headed back home
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