UK Media Labels Falun Gong Show "Propaganda"

"Shen Yun: Propaganda as entertainment"

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2008/02/25/btshen125.xml

This show is advertised as a Chinese spectacular - a kind of Eastern version of Cirque du Soleil. It is nothing of the kind.

Acrobatics, singing and dancing skills are used in the service of a propaganda exercise on the part of Falun Gong

the teachings of a man who believes that aliens live among us and that homosexuality and mixed-raced marriages are degenerate... seems a long way from the "truthfulness, compassion and forbearance" presented

politically motivated performance is being smuggled on to stages around Europe in the name of family entertainment

Falun Gong's Lying Politics Exposed Yet Again

Looks like Hong Kong's Falun Dafa Association lied to the HK High Court. So much for Truthfulness:

http://www.rthk.org.hk/rthk/news/englishnews/20080213/news_20080213_56_467958.htm

The High Court has refused to review an Immigration Department decision to deny
entry to hundreds of overseas Falun Gong followers during last year's tenth anniversary of the handover. The judge said the association had deliberately
misled the court into believing there was an urgent need for a judicial review.

http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/menuitem.2c913216495213d5df646910cba0a0a0/?vgnextoid=d87d1eb93c318110VgnVCM100000360a0a0aRCRD&vgnextfmt=teaser&ss=Hong+Kong&s=News

Hong Kong head of the Falun Gong had deliberately misled the High Court about his knowledge of a supposed ban on members of the movement

NY Times: Audience Walk Out Of Falun Gong "Agiprop Theater"

From New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/06/nyregion/06splendor.html

members of the audience, in twos and fours and larger groups, began to walk out. At intermission, dozens of people, perhaps a few hundred, were leaving. They had realized that the show was not simply a celebration of the Chinese New Year, but an outreach of Falun Gong

Here's the definition of "agiprop":

political strategy in which the techniques of agitation and propaganda are used to influence and mobilize public opinion. Although the strategy is common, both the label and an obsession with it were specific to the Marxism

Irony abound. Thank you Gary Wong.