CANBERRA
March 18 2002

Australian Federal Police have removed banners supporting the Falun Gong spiritual [group] from the front of the Chinese Embassy in Canberra ahead of a visit by China's foreign minister.

AFP officers, acting on orders from Foreign Minister Alexander Downer, removed banners and stereo music from the nine-month-old protest site yesterday.

The action came just 48 hours before China's foreign minister Tang Jaixuan arrives in Canberra for meetings with Mr Downer, Opposition Leader Simon Crean and Governor-General Peter Hollingworth.

A spokesman for Mr Downer said the AFP had removed the protest material backed by certificates issued under the Diplomatic Immunities and Privileges Act.

"Those certificates authorise police to remove the banners which had been constructed down there and which have been in place for some months in clear breach of ACT law," he said.

"But we also took action because they were affecting the dignity of the Chinese mission."

He said the stereos had been removed because staff at the embassy were unsettled by the meditation music being played by Falun Gong.

"The foreign minister's visit is important for advancing Australia's interests," the spokesman said.

"We must ensure the maximum degree of security for the foreign minister's visit."

A Falun Gong spokesman, Daniel Clark, said he believed the order had broken a long-standing agreement with the AFP whereby the protesters had voluntarily moved across the street from the Chinese Embassy in order to maintain their vigil.

"We see this as a freedom of speech issue," he said.

"These orders were first shown to us last Friday and were not issued under parliamentary letterhead, so we're questioning the legality of this move."

He vowed hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners would gather outside the embassy during Mr Tang's visit to protest peacefully against Beijing's ongoing crackdown against [group] members in China.

A group of 10 Australian Falun Gong members only returned home last week after they were jailed for unfurling protest banners in Tiananmen Square.

Mr Downer's spokesman said the government had an obligation to maintain the dignity and security of foreign missions in Australia.

"There has effectively been a permanent picket there for some months," he said.

"We had raised these issues with the Falun Gong previously and they refused to do so, and in fact acknowledged that their intention was to unsettle the Chinese embassy staff."

Labor foreign spokesman Kevin Rudd said he was looking into why the protest material had been removed.

"In this country, which is a functioning democracy, everyone has a right to free speech, and that includes representatives of ... Falun Gong," he said.

Australian Greens Senator Bob Brown said it was an embarrassing backdown by a democracy to a dictatorship.

"On the very day the prime minister is flying to London to comment on the Zimbabwean election, we've got the foreign minister here shelving the right to protest as a minister from the communist regime flies in," he told AAP.

"Beijing rings and Canberra jumps, and I object totally as an Australian to that."

Senator Brown said it was an extraordinarily petty action reminiscent of Canberra's decision to refuse the Dalai Lama permission to speak at Parliament House during his upcoming visit.

He said he intended to raise the matter in the Senate in a bid to find out whether the government had acted properly, because parliamentary approval may have been required.

http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2002/03/18/1015909928878.html