AP: Chinese embassy officials try to stop exhibit of works by Falun Gong painter (excerpt)

ALEXANDRU ALEXE

Associated Press Worldstream

April 5, 2003 Saturday

An exhibit displaying the works of a painter who is a [practitioner] of the Falun Gong spiritual movement had to be relocated after a theater closed the show at the request of the Chinese embassy, the organizer said Saturday.

The exhibit, which shows paintings by the Chinese-born Zhang Cui Ying, will reopen in a hotel next week after a local theater where it was initially shown shut it down, said Adrian Sturdza, who organized the exhibit.

Two Chinese embassy officials disrupted the exhibit's March 31 vernissage at the theater, telling visitors they were taking part in an illegal event. The theater then shut the exhibit down, said Sturdza, who also is a Falun Gong [practitioner].

"Last month, some Chinese embassy official told me that they would not allow this exhibit to take place in Romania," Sturdza said. "I laughed at him, telling them that Romania is not China."

[...]

Zhao Deyong, a spokesman for the Chinese embassy in Bucharest, confirmed that the embassy had asked the theater to cancel the exhibit and that two diplomats went to observe it on opening day.

[...]

Sturdza said the organization was legal in Romania as a cultural association. The exhibit is to reopen Tuesday in the lobby of Bucharest's Intercontinental Hotel, he added.

[...]

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