Digital Billboard Truck Seeking to Identify Attacker of Falun Gong Practitioner Arrives at Toronto Chinese Consulate

A digital billboard truck displaying footage of an attack against a Falun Gong practitioner returned on Oct. 1 outside the Chinese Consulate in Toronto as police investigate the Sept. 22 incident.

The truck, brought by Rebel News, displayed video of the confrontation and the message, “Chinese Canadians have the same rights as every other Canadian.”

On Sept. 22, Lina Li, a Toronto-area resident and Falun Gong practitioner, was standing outside the consulate on a public sidewalk with banners calling for an end to the Chinese communist regime’s persecution of the Falun Gong spiritual discipline.

According to Toronto police, an unknown man approached the practitioners as they were preparing for a meditation gathering, damaged their signs and banners, threatened one practitioner, and left before officers arrived. Police said they were investigating. The accounts provided do not establish whether the man has since been identified or charged.

Video shows the man pulling down banners, pushing Li as she tried to stop him, and kicking toward Nora Geng, who was filming. Li said she was left bleeding from her chin. The man wore a jacket bearing a Chinese flag, made threats in Chinese, and claimed the public sidewalk was “Chinese territory.”

One video captured him telling Li, “I’ll shoot you dead, believe it or not.”

Rebel News said it brought the billboard truck to the consulate Monday, and contributor Scarlett Grace said in a post on X Thursday that it had returned for another demonstration.

“This is not Chinese territory on the sidewalk here. This is Canada, and you are allowed to practice whatever faith, belief system, or religion you want to in this country, and it has to stay that way,” Grace told a reporter of NTD, the sister media outlet of The Epoch Times, at the demonstration on Monday. “So we need to go after people like this.”

She said she spoke with demonstrators who said the attack is not a first occurrence, just the first time such an occurrence was captured on film and had gone viral.

The truck’s message on Thursday read, “Chinese diplomats aren’t here to help anyone. They are spies, here to track, control, and silence Chinese-Canadians who criticize Beijing.”

Video of the demonstration shows a rally outside the consulate displaying banners and Canadian flags with police in the vicinity.

“Canada, don’t trust communist China,” attendees can be heard chanting in a video shared with NTD.

The demonstration comes as a petition promoted by Rebel News calls for charges against the man filmed confronting Falun Gong practitioners outside the consulate.

Rebel News reported the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto denied a connection to the man.

The petition asks Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to seek charges against the man, expel any diplomat found to be involved, and close what it calls Chinese Communist Party police stations in Canada. Rebel News’ petition page listed more than 700 signatures toward a goal of 10,000 as of Thursday afternoon. The petition’s demand concerning diplomats does not establish that any were involved.

Falun Gong practitioners and supporters also rallied outside the Global Affairs Canada building in Ottawa on Sept. 28. The Falun Dafa Association of Canada asked Foreign Affairs Minister Anita Anand to condemn the Toronto incident, raise it with Beijing, and seek clarification about any involvement by Chinese diplomatic personnel. It also urged officials to investigate a possible foreign-state connection and strengthen protections against intimidation.

“This attack is not an isolated event,” Falun Gong practitioner Kathy Gillis said at the rally, reading from the association’s statement. The association said practitioners in Canada have reported harassment, surveillance, threats, and assaults for more than two decades.

Public Safety Canada said it takes threats to the safety and security of Canadians seriously. The police said it does not publicly comment on potential or ongoing investigations.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a meditation discipline centered on the teachings of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The practice quickly spread by word of mouth in China and reached 70 million to 100 million practitioners by the late 1990s.

Since 1999, the Chinese Communist Party has used its entire state apparatus to persecute Falun Gong practitioners inside China through arbitrary detention, forced brainwashing and transformation, forced labor, torture, and forced live organ harvesting. Abroad, the persecution has extended to transnational repression, with the Falun Dafa Information Center having recorded more than 600 such cases between 2020 and 2025.

Falun Gong practitioners continue to hold regular demonstrations outside the Chinese consulate in Toronto to draw attention to the persecution of fellow practitioners in China.

From NTD News