By Jin Yan, Vision Times
OTTAWA, Canada — On Sept. 28, more than 100 Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside Global Affairs Canada, calling on the federal government to condemn a violent confrontation that took place outside the Chinese Consulate in Toronto and investigate whether the incident involved foreign interference backed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The rally followed a Sept. 22 confrontation in which an unidentified man damaged Falun Gong banners and displays, injuring one practitioner and repeatedly threatening demonstrators outside the consulate.
Toronto police have said they are investigating the incident. Video from the scene, along with accounts from those present, has since fueled calls for authorities to determine whether the incident was an isolated attack or connected to broader concerns over transnational repression in Canada.
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Calls for a federal investigation
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62-year-old Falun Gong practitioner Li Na said she and another practitioner had just finished setting up informational displays outside the consulate when a man crossed the street and began pulling them down. Li said she suffered a cut to her chin while trying to stop him. Another practitioner, Nora Geng, said the man kicked dirt towards her while she recorded the confrontation.
Video of the encounter shows the man, wearing a jacket bearing a Chinese flag, insisting that the area outside the consulate was “Chinese territory” and making threats that included “I will kill you” and claims that the practitioners could be shot in China. Practitioners said another person filmed the incident and that a vehicle later picked the man up.
The Chinese Consulate in Toronto subsequently told Rebel News that the individual had “no connection with the Consulate General of the People’s Republic of China in Toronto,” adding that it opposed what it called “malicious implication or false accusations” linking the incident to the diplomatic mission.
Falun Gong representatives nevertheless urged the Royal Canadian Mounted Police to examine whether foreign-interference laws could be relevant. Canada’s Countering Foreign Interference Act, adopted in 2024, expanded criminal provisions covering intimidation, threats and violence carried out at the direction of, for the benefit of, or in association with a foreign entity.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice rooted in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Despite being peaceful in nature, the CCP launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice in July 1999 after seeing its rapid rise in popularity as a threat to its authoritarian regime. Since then, thousands of practitioners have perished at the hands of Chinese police, with many today still undergoing routine monitoring, arbitrary travel bans, and arrests.
A concerning escalation
Falun Gong community liaison Jeff Li said practitioners have maintained peaceful demonstrations outside the Toronto consulate for roughly 27 years and have encountered harassment and vandalism before. Previous attacks, he said, were typically “hit-and-run” incidents in which individuals concealed their faces, shouted insults or damaged banners before quickly leaving.
He described the Sept. 22 episode as an escalation because the man acted openly, was accompanied by someone recording the encounter and directly issued death threats. In the last few years, the Falun Dafa Association of Canada has documented several claims of harassment, surveillance, intimidation and other forms of interference in its 2025 Update: Foreign Interference & Repression of Falun Gong in Canada. The report was produced by the association and reflects its findings in-depth.
In response to the attack, Grace Wollensak, national coordinator of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, submitted a letter to Canadian officials calling for a public condemnation of the attack, diplomatic engagement with Beijing and a broader investigation into whether foreign actors played a role.
Her group has previously testified before Parliament about CCP-backed transnational repression targeting Falun Gong practitioners in Canada. Wollensak appeared before a House of Commons human rights subcommittee in April to discuss what the association says is a coordinated overseas campaign against practitioners.
Lawyer urges criminal probe
Wu Shaoping, chairman of the Overseas Chinese Human Rights Lawyers Group, argued that the threats should be treated as potential criminal conduct regardless of any political context. Calling the remarks “a blatant death threat,” Wu said that in a democratic country governed by law, a death threat “is a criminal act.” He also criticized the man’s apparent invocation of Chinese law while confronting demonstrators on Canadian soil. The conduct, Wu said, “simply does not take Canadian law seriously.”
Wu urged authorities to establish the man’s identity and investigate whether he had any connection to a foreign entity. He speculated that the individual “looked more like someone sent by the Chinese consulate,” but no public evidence has established such a connection, and the consulate has denied one.
He also suggested authorities should examine whether the incident formed part of a broader coordinated campaign, saying he “cannot rule out that it was a coordinated action by the CCP’s united front system.”
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