A Falun Gong marching band that was supposed to play at the Canadian Tulip Festival yesterday was removed from the the festival's opening ceremonies in the last minute after festival organizers said they had been deceived, CTV News and Ottawa Citizen reported on May 5.
Just as the band was preparing to perform O Canada and Maple Leaf Forever at the opening of the International Pavilion, festival official Louise Thibault-Little stopped the band from getting on stage.
Festival organizers claim the band was not clear about its affiliation with the controversial religion, which is banned in China.
If festival staff knew the Tian Guo Marching Band were all Falun Gong members, they never would have been booked at the festival.
Falun Gong supporters said the band had come to play, not protest.
Eventually organizers told the band they could play if they took off their blue jackets and yellow scarves, which are emblazoned with small Falun Gong emblems, but they refused. After that, another festival official came backstage to tell the band that their performance had been delayed until later in the evening. A short time later, Ottawa police and RCMP officers arrived to escort the band away.
To festival organizers, the band's appearance was intended to embarrass the Chinese embassy.
"From our point of view, and from our partner's point of view, their participation is political," said Little, "They were here to protest and the tulip festival is not about protest, it's about international friendship."
At an emotional news conference on Parliament Hill Monday, band representatives demanded the festival apologize and allow them to play their remaining engagements at the festival, and to let them play over the next two weekends.
But festival organizers say they won't apologize and claim they were deceived by what they believe would have been a protest against the Chinese government.
Because no protests were welcome, all of the band's performances were cancelled, including the performance at Dow's Lake on May 11 and May 18.
It's not the first time Falun Gong supporters have stirred up trouble at the Tulip Festival. In 2003, organizers barred them from entering the annual flotilla along the Rideau Canal, claiming they had littered and driven erratically the year before.
Eventually the festival allowed the Falun Gong float to participate once they agreed not to distribute leaflets and to hire a professional driver.
Falun Gong also stirred up controversy in Ottawa in 2007, when a Chinese New Year's show at the National Arts Centre featured a sketch of a Falun Gong practitioner being killed by the Chinese police. Although the show was organized by Falun Gong practitioners, the marketing did not include any reference to the religion and the Chinese embassy criticized it as propaganda.
(Facts.org.cn, May 7, 2008)
