Crimson Military & Chinese language Torture Victims – 2005: Occasions in London on fifteenth January 2005 related with China and Russia.
Falun Gong Exhibit – Chinese language Torturers. Westminster – Portland Place
Again in 2005 I wrote “to me, Falun Gong appears a innocent type of meditation workouts, out there to anybody with out cost and following the admirable ideas of truthfulness, compassion and tolerance, however the Chinese language authorities appear to treat it as essentially the most harmful type of terrorism.”
Now I’m much less optimistic though nonetheless shocked by the accounts of “bodily tortures, together with beatings, electrical shocks, immersion, chaining for hours and days and the notorious ‘tiger bench’ are used along with psychological assaults together with humiliation and sleep deprivation by the Chinese language authorities to suppress the observe.”
In keeping with Wikipedia, whereas Falun Gong is a brand new faith primarily based on Buddhism, its founder within the early Nineties Li Hongzhi gave it some extremely reactionary traits, such because the rejection of recent scientific concepts together with evolution and medicines, racism, and opposition to homosexuality and feminism. Extra lately it has promoted conspiracy theories together with QAnon and anti-vaccination misinformation and supported Trump and extreme-right actions in Europe.
The Wikipedia article additionally carries an account of a 2018 report that “highlights Falun Gong’s in depth web presence, and the way editors who need to date contributed to English Wikipedia entries related to Falun Gong to the purpose the place ‘Falun Gong followers and/or sympathizers de facto management the related pages on Wikipedia‘”. Maybe Wikipedia has now managed not less than to some extent to forestall this, however though plenty of lecturers have criticised Falun Gong as a cult, this phrase and the criticisms seem nowhere within the article.
Li Hongzhi now lives with tons of of supporters near a 427 acre compound in New York State, Dragon Springs which is the coaching floor for its Shen Yen performers. The organisation describes itself as “the world’s premier classical Chinese language dance and music firm” and whose performances around the globe gives important funding for Falun Gong together with a press group The Epoch Instances and a PR agency.
Falun Gong has additionally acquired appreciable funding from the US authorities specific for the event of free software program supposed to avoid Chinese language authorities web censorship. Their actions have actually been integrated within the US’s battle to retain dominance over China.
Crimson Sq., SW1- Russian Winter Competition – Trafalgar Sq.
Crimson sq., SW1 was a Russian winter competition celebrating the Russian Previous New Yr, January 1st based on the Julian Calendar utilized in Russia till the Revolution and nonetheless by the Russian Orthodox Church – which falls on 14th January for the remainder of us.
This was a spectacular occasion, run in cooperation with Moscow metropolis authorities and lots of Russian companies buying and selling within the UK, and I solely photographed it for the primary few hours, lacking the large celebrations, the rock live performance, the ice skating at Somerset Home and extra. In addition to the viewers on the occasion it was additionally going out to twenty million listeners on Russian radio, in addition to to anybody who might put up with an inane presenter from some UK radio station.
Each London Mayor Ken Livingstone and Moscow’s Mayor opened the present, although I made a decision to take a relaxation at that time from taking footage and as a substitute strive “a wonderful however overpriced Baltika beer, imported from St Petersburg – at a wise value i might develop a style for it.” However I might nonetheless hear the speeches and study that Ken’s father had taken half within the Baltic convoys in WW2.
However for me the cultural highpoint was the efficiency of the Alexandrov Crimson Military Choir, based in 1928 to glorify the revolution by the composer of the Soviet nationwide anthem. Although I discovered little to {photograph} throughout the efficiency I used to be in a position to take fairly a number of footage of the boys later and of a Irish lady who had attended a crimson military choir efficiency in Dublin within the Nineteen Fifties as a schoolgirl,and had introduced a document of them from 1956 for them to signal.
The document cowl had an image of the choir and a few of those that had sung on it have been nonetheless with the choir 49 years later. A youthful member of the choir introduced a few of them throughout, together with the unbelievable bass soloist who handled us to slightly of his voice and signed the duvet – utilizing the Stabilo ‘Write-4-all’ pen I carried to take action on the shiny cowl when an abnormal pen failed.
And in 2005 I concluded:
Oh sure, there was pretend snow on the lions, some very bizarre people dancing involving issues that appeared reasonably like dustbin lids wielded by fur-coated ladies with loads of heavy respiration reasonably than singing, Russian dolls, meals and extra.
What I did not document was that within the crush to see the Crimson Military Choir I had forgotten to zip up my digicam bag and later discovered that a budget telephoto zoom was lacking from it. I wasn’t too bothered, as I had already realised it had been a mistake to purchase it because it was reasonably a poor performer and I reasonably welcomed the necessity to exchange it with one thing higher.
I wrote reasonably extra and there are extra footage, notably of the choir on My London Diary
Flickr – Fb – My London Diary – Hull Images – Lea Valley – Paris
London’s Industrial Heritage – London Images
All images on this web page are copyright © Peter Marshall.
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Tags: Alexandrov Crimson Military Choir, China, Chinese language Torture, compassion, conspiracy theories, cult, evolution, Falun Gong, feminism, competition, homophobi, homosexuality, Ken Livingstone, London, medicines, peter Marshall, protest, racism, racist, Crimson Military Choir, Crimson Sq., reord signing, Russian, Shen Yen, SW1, tolerance, Torture Victims, Trafalgar Sq., Wikipedia, Winter Competition
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