Exclusive — Levi Browde: Shen Yun Performances Face ‘Constant Threat’ of Terrorist Acts by the CCP

Shen Yun shows and performers face the “constant threat” of slashed tires, bomb threats, and more terrorist threats at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), human rights advocate Levi Browde said during a discussion on Breitbart News Saturday.

Browde, the executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, which raises awareness about the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, discussed the threats lodged by the CCP in relation to the Shen Yun show. The show itself is a big performance featuring the dance troupe that goes around the world in what has been described as an anti-communist show. Browde described it as a “renaissance of authentic Chinese culture that the Chinese regime, the communist regime in Beijing, has been trying to destroy for many, many decades.”

“It was started by people who practice Falun Gong, which is, as you mentioned in the intro, [is a] Buddhist-based spiritual practice… It got so popular, the Chinese regime tried to eradicate it, and so for the last 25 years, if you’re a Falun Gong practitioner in China, you’re subjected to detention, torture,” he said, noting that death by torture is “rampant.”

“Some of the Falun Gong practitioners that were elite artists saw what was happening in China. Saw the Chinese regime. It wasn’t just about Falun Gong. The Chinese regime trying to stamp out all of real Chinese culture, which is [a] very spiritual nature. And they founded Shen Yun in New York in the United States in 2006 and for the last 20 years, they have been showing on stages all around the world,” he said.

The show has faced a flurry of threats, leading to the shutdown of shows. In Toronto, for example, the five remaining shows had to be canceled due to “escalating threats.” Browde added background to this sad reality, noting that Shen Yun has to “guard their busses everywhere they go in the world, 24/7 because of sabotage.”

Host Matthew Boyle added, “Just the other day, a show in Toronto was canceled due to a fake bomb threat, and organizers say, just like all these other ones, that it was the CCP and China behind it.”

Browde said this is not necessarily new but has been going on for the last 20 years. It began with Chinese diplomats “pressuring theaters, pressuring local government, writing nasty letters” and “trying to shut down the show that way.”

Because that did not work globally, they have had to change tactics, attacking the show’s buses, calling in bomb threats, and more.

“As you mentioned, 10-12, years ago, busses of Shen Yun were attacked simultaneously in different countries around the world one weekend, and from then on, have had a constant threat of actual instances of slashing their tires, sabotaging brake systems, things like that, in the last two or three years,” he said.

“What’s happened is this wave of really, let’s call what they are: they’re threats to carry out terrorist acts, bomb threats, threats to do mass shooting, threats to rape and kill the female performers at Shen Yun. These have largely targeted the headquarters of Shen Yun New York, but also in theaters all around the world,” Browde revealed, adding that these threats have aways involved local authorities, who have always deemed the threats to be hoaxes.

“Some of those threats were traced back to China, so we know where they’re coming from. So it’s not that they pose a real threat to the patrons to the theater, but it certainly serves as a scare tactic. And as you, as you correctly noted last week in Toronto, that scare tactic sometimes works, where the theater, even though the local police said, ‘Look, this is really just… an unfounded threat,’ even though the police came to that determination, the theater made the decision, ‘Let’s cancel the shows,'” he said.

“And so almost a whole weeks of shows were canceled because of that threat. And I think the thing to point out is, in Canada, in the U.S., what is — what is this really? This is really about Beijing reaching its long arm into democracies and deciding what shows we can have and not have,” he concluded. “I mean, this is really sort of trying to influence how we operate, how we live our lives right here in America, Canada, and throughout the West.”

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