“The show must go on” is the message in Atlanta, Georgia, despite a mass shooting threat made against Shen Yun Performing Arts’ world tour.
On Wednesday, the show’s presenter, The Falun Dafa Association of Atlanta, received a message written in Chinese along with a photo of a gun and ammunition. The sender threatened to break in and shoot everyone during a Shen Yun performance in Atlanta later this month. Organizers say the FBI is investigating and the show will go on as planned.
Shen Yun is a classical Chinese dance company that has been targeted by the Chinese Communist Party since it was founded in 2006.
“The very nature of the show, where they present the culture of China—the Chinese Communist Party has spent decades trying to destroy,” says Joshua Philipp, senior investigative reporter at The Epoch Times.
Shen Yun says the Chinese regime has tried to sabotage its tour more than 130 times. Its records detail how the regime has pressured local elected officials, threatened theater managers, made bomb threats, and even slashed the ties of Shen Yun buses.
Last month, a Chinese agent was sentenced to prison in New York for trying to bribe an IRS agent. His goal was to get Shen Yun’s nonprofit status revoked.
“The Chinese Communist Party has been doing this for decades, creating different paths of influence of people they can manipulate to carry out these exact operations,” Philipp said.
Shen Yun is a global sensation, performing for over 1 million people every year. It highlights the human rights abuses suffered by people in China today. This has made it a target for the Chinese regime.
The group was founded by practitioners of the spiritual practice Falun Gong. It’s heavily persecuted in China. Recent whistleblower accounts and leaked documents reveal that the Chinese Communist Party is now escalating its attacks on Falun Gong in America. Its main target is Shen Yun and other organizations founded by Falun Gong practitioners.
