ZB ZB
Live now
Start time
Playing for
End time
Listen live
Listen to NAME OF STATION
Up next
Listen live on
ZB

Anger over minister's advice to avoid group

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 6 May 2015, 6:46AM
A Falun Gong protestor (Getty Images)
A Falun Gong protestor (Getty Images)

Anger over minister's advice to avoid group

Author
Newstalk ZB Staff,
Publish Date
Wed, 6 May 2015, 6:46AM

New Zealand's Falun Gong community is furious at news the Foreign Affairs minister has asked his MPs not to attend the group's celebrations next week.

A leaked email contains advice from Murray McCully's office that ministers and MPs should not attend World Falun Dafa Day events next week, because of Chinese Embassy sensitivities.

The Falun Gong group claim in a statement that the Chinese Communist Party has no right to tell elected members of Parliament what they can attend. It says "New Zealand is in danger of becoming nothing more than a subservient colonial outpost of the Chinese Communist Party."

The group's lawyer Kerry Gore says they should be able to freely exercise their own decision making capacity.

Labour’s Foreign Affairs spokesperson David Shearer says it's outrageous to warn MPs off attending events.

He says New Zealand has a proud history of free speech, freedom of religion and an independent foreign policy and it shouldn't be dictated by Murray McCully because it might upset another country.

 

Take your Radio, Podcasts and Music with you