March 14, 2022 - Epoch Times
23:46
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| Time | Text |
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| This is your daily Facts Matter update and I'm your host Roman from the Epoch Times. | |
| And now let's begin today's discussion by talking about the Freedom Convoy up in Canada. | |
| And to start with, as you've likely seen over on social media, the truckers, as well as the other anti-mandate protesters, they have been in Ottawa for the past two weeks now. | |
| And generally, based on the videos as well as the independent on-the-ground reporting, it seems like it is a peaceful protest with a bit of a family atmosphere. | |
| And even though it's been bone-chilling cold, sometimes even going well below freezing for days at a time, well, the protesters there have been dancing, singing, chanting, honking their horns, handing out food and beverages, and they even set up bouncy castles for the kids to play in. | |
| However, if you have been following the mainstream media narrative about the protest, well, then likely you have gotten a much different picture. | |
| Here's an example of some of the different kinds of coverage that have been out there regarding the truckers over on the mainstream and legacy media outlets. | |
| Some of the organizers of this protest, which as I mentioned, started more than a week ago, they do want to overthrow the government. | |
| Canadian officials calling the situation a, quote, nationwide insurrection. | |
| The police chief says COVID protests are a, quote, nationwide insurrection driven by madness. | |
| A nationwide insurrection driven by madness. | |
| Just think of the language. | |
| I know it sounds familiar to you, right? | |
| A threat to democracy, an insurrection, sedition. | |
| The police say that they are under resourced and they are overwhelmed. | |
| They have said that this city is under siege. | |
| It's not just truckers. | |
| There's a lot of... | |
| I've heard there's QAnon supporters in the crowd. | |
| Residents that I have spoken to who say they feel terrorized, intimidated. | |
| It's... | |
| A cult. | |
| There was even a woman on national Canadian television hypothesizing whether the entire thing was actually being funded by foreign nationals, maybe even Russia. | |
| Take a look. | |
| You know, given Canada's support of Ukraine in this current crisis with Russia, I don't know if it's far-fetched to ask, but there is concern that... | |
| Russian actors could be continuing to fuel things as this protest grows, but perhaps even instigating it from the outset. | |
| And her comments, they bring us neatly along to the question of funding. | |
| Because as we already discussed on our previous episode regarding this matter, the truckers were able to raise over $10 million on the crowdfunding platform called GoFundMe. | |
| With that money, it was earmarked by the organizers to go to things like gas, food, as well as expenses for the truckers so they can keep on protesting. | |
| However, in an almost unprecedented move, the local police office of Ottawa, they lobbied GoFundMe to cut off the money for the truckers. | |
| And would you believe it? | |
| GoFundMe complied. | |
| They capitulated and they closed the Freedom Convoy fundraiser, which again, had at that point raised over $10 million. | |
| Here is a statement from GoFundMe when they decided to take this action. | |
| We now have evidence from law enforcement that the previously peaceful demonstration has become an occupation, with police reports of violence and other unlawful activities. | |
| Now, I just want to pause here for a quick moment. | |
| In 2020, when there was an actual occupation in the city of Seattle, you might remember it, it was called the CHAZ Zone, which stood for the Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone, and it was when a relatively large group of leftist protesters, they took over an area of the city, they had the police abandon their local precinct, and essentially they set up a separate country within Seattle. | |
| And during that time, GoFundMe praised the protesters and they promoted their cause. | |
| Here's an example. | |
| This was posted by GoFundMe's official Twitter account in July of 2020, and it says, quote, And again, just for your reference, CHOP stands for Capitol Hill Occupied Protest. | |
| So it's pretty unambiguous that that was also an occupation. | |
| However, it looks like in the case of Canada, when the police say that the protest has become an occupation, well, that's enough for GoFundMe to pull their donations. | |
| But even going further than that, GoFundMe took an unprecedented step. | |
| Here's how their statement continued. | |
| Given how the situation has evolved, no further funds will be directly distributed to the Freedom Convoy organizers. | |
| We will work with organizers to send all the remaining funds to credible and established charities verified by GoFundMe. | |
| And so think about that for just a super quick moment. | |
| The trucker's convoy raised over $10 million from small, individual donors who supported the efforts at fighting back against the mandates. | |
| But because the local police asked them to do so, GoFundMe decided that they will take this money and instead send it to credible and established charities that are verified by GoFundMe. | |
| That is indeed unprecedented. | |
| Although, when I was younger, such an act would actually be called stealing, but I guess now we can just call it the redistribution of wealth. | |
| Regardless, though, there was actually such a heavy backlash against this decision by the actual donors that GoFundMe, they changed their tactic, and they said that they would just automatically refund the money to anyone who donated to the cause. | |
| And so then that left the obvious question. | |
| How would the truckers in Ottawa be able to continue protesting when they are not able to get funds for fuel? | |
| Well, the local community appears to have stood up and filled the gap. | |
| That's because after the funding was cut, over on social media, you saw lots of videos of droves of people, sometimes upwards of 100 people, coming into the Ottawa protest with cans of gas to give to the truckers. | |
| Just as the police attacked the fundraising, they also began to target the gas. | |
| That's because five days ago, the Ottawa Police Department announced that they would begin to crack down further and arrest anyone who gives material aid, such as fuel and food, to the protesters. | |
| And indeed, that's what happened. | |
| People began to get arrested for bringing fuel to the truckers. | |
| Then, a new fundraising campaign was set up over on a different platform called GiveSendGo, which is sort of an alternative to GoFundMe. | |
| It's a platform run by devout Christians, and as of this moment, the truckers have already raised close to $9 million on this new platform. | |
| However, a judge over in Ontario, he recently ruled that these GiveSendGo funds, they must be frozen. | |
| But unlike GoFundMe, the owners of GiveSendGo, they did not capitulate. | |
| And instead, they released this statement. | |
| Know this. | |
| Canada has absolutely zero jurisdiction over how we manage our funds here at GiveSendGo. | |
| All funds for every campaign on GiveSendGo flow directly to the recipients of those campaigns, not least of which is the Freedom Convoy campaign. | |
| Thanks for your concern, but this recipient is receiving funds. | |
| Now, the big question here is that with all these challenges, these arrests, the smears by the media and by the politicians, well, is the protest actually working? | |
| Is the protest having the effect that the truckers are hoping that it will? | |
| And the answer appears to be yes. | |
| That's because as of today, six of Canada's provinces have announced that they will begin to roll back their COVID restrictions. | |
| Those provinces, just for your reference, are Quebec, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, Manitoba, as well as the province of Prince Edward Island. | |
| And all these provinces, they have declared plans to either completely remove or to begin rolling back some, or in some cases all, of their respective policies. | |
| As an example, over in Alberta, they have dropped their vaccine passport system and they announced plans to get rid of their mask requirements altogether by the end of this month. | |
| And then over in Manitoba, just earlier today, their premier announced that they are ending the proof of vaccination requirements by the end of this month and then eliminating the mask mandates by the middle of next month, by March 15th. | |
| And so obviously this protest is having an effect. | |
| However, over in Ontario, which is Canada's largest province by a big margin, about 40% of all of Canada's population lives in Ontario, well, there's currently an interesting political situation. | |
| Because while publicly, the Premier of Ontario, Mr. | |
| Doug Ford, he's taking a hard stance in opposition to the truckers, and he even announced a state of emergency just yesterday, which will now grant even more authority to the police so that they can more easily arrest and fine the protesters. | |
| Well, privately, it's a different matter. | |
| That's because in a leaked private phone call... | |
| Which was first reported on by Rebel News, it reveals that Doug Ford is planning on dropping the vaccine passport system so that the province can get back to normal ASAP. Here's part of that leaked phone call. | |
| I'm going to make this quick because I've got to get moving on this. | |
| We're pulling these passports. | |
| We're going to get back to normal. | |
| And, you know, I can't give you the exact date, but it's going to be very soon. | |
| Okay. | |
| Okay. | |
| I'll be speaking over the next few days. | |
| Friday, I'm going to put out a statement. | |
| Monday, I'll be giving some dates, and we're going to move forward. | |
| Okay. | |
| Thanks a lot. | |
| Appreciate it. | |
| Take care. | |
| Bye. | |
| Now, it is also worth noting that besides the pressure of having Ottawa jammed by trucks, well, Mr. | |
| Doug Ford is also facing a re-election in June of this year, in June of 2022, which is just now a few months away. | |
| And so we will have to wait and see how all this plays out. | |
| And according to the statements that have been put out by the protest organizers themselves, well, it appears that they are in it for the long haul and will continue to protest until a permanent end to all the COVID measures has been announced. | |
| If you'd like to read more about these protests over in Ottawa, about the drama with all the funding, or if you would like to listen to the full leaked phone call from Doug Ford, all that will be down in the description box below this video for you to check out. | |
| And all ask in return is that you take a super quick moment to smash, smash, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| And now, let's move on over and discuss how, right now, during the Olympic Games, the Chinese Communist Party is arresting dissidents behind the scenes. | |
| What's going on? | |
| Sorry. | |
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| And now Roman in the studio, back to you. | |
| Now let's move on over and talk about the Olympics. | |
| Right now, as I'm sure you're aware, the world is tuned in to the 2022 Beijing Olympic Games. | |
| Now, of course, the ratings for this year's Olympics are in the gutter, being something like 50% lower than 2018. | |
| But still, that means during every event, every press briefing, and every Chinese communist publicity stunt, millions of people are still watching. | |
| However, very obvious cracks are beginning to form in what the world is actually seeing. | |
| For instance, take a look at what happened here when a journalist who is in China on a media visa in order to report on the Olympics, take a look at what happens when he actually tries to do some reporting. | |
| What will China show the next few hours? | |
| Yeah. | |
| Hey, Shandai, you're watching Shandai. | |
| We've been here, as you can see, already removed. | |
| We've been removed from another area, so I'm afraid we'll be back later. | |
| If you ever wondered what would happen to Western press freedom in a communist country, well, there it was in full display. | |
| Furthermore, underneath the surface, meaning behind the scenes of all the glossy, polished Olympics, well, people are still getting thrown into prisons, into re-education camps, and many of them are being tortured brutally due to either who they are or what they believe in. | |
| And along that line, just two days ago, Senator Rick Scott, he's a Republican from Florida, and he issued this statement, which said this in part. | |
| Three days before the opening of the 2022 Winter Olympics in Beijing, Ms. | |
| Ji, a Falun Gong practitioner, was arrested for simply practicing her religion and is now being held at Inner Mongolia's Balinzuchi detention center. | |
| Chinese police have been following and persecuting Ms. | |
| Ji since 1999 and she has been forced into forced labor camps and tortured in 2001 and 2008. | |
| Ms. | |
| Ji is currently on a hunger strike to protest her detention and authorities are not allowing her family to visit her. | |
| Now, fortunately, we here at the Epoch Times were able to find that woman's son, who is an architect here in America. | |
| His name is Simon, and we had a chance to interview him about what exactly is happening to his mom behind the scenes in China. | |
| And the story is actually quite brutal, because not only was she arrested three days ahead of the Winter Olympics, but this wasn't even the first time, because back during the 2008 Olympics in China, his mom was likewise arrested and sentenced to several years of forced labor. | |
| Why? | |
| Well, as Senator Rick Scott mentioned, she is a practitioner of a meditation practice called Falun Gong. | |
| Now, Falun Gong is a spiritual meditation discipline that's centered around the moral teachings based on truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance, but it has been brutally persecuted by the Chinese Communist regime for the past two decades. | |
| And so adherents within China, they have been deemed enemies of the state, and they've been thrown into prisons, labor camps, brainwashing centers, and many of them, they have been tortured, raped, and sentenced to do forced labor in order to make products for international export. | |
| However, amidst all this, there are people like Simon's mom who continue to print materials, hand them out to people, try to wake them up to the realities of what's actually happening, and clarify the truth regarding the communist propaganda. | |
| Here's Simon's story. | |
| My name is Simon Zhang, Chinese name is Zhang Xiaofeng. | |
| I'm an architect in New York City. | |
| Right now, the world is focused on Beijing. | |
| They're focused on the 2022 Winter Olympics. | |
| That's, you know, what's on all the news channels. | |
| However, just a short five or six hour drive to the north, to the northwest... | |
| There's something that's happening with your family and your hometown. | |
| Can you set the stage for the audience, tell them what's going on? | |
| On February 1st, which was about three days before the Olympic Games was held, before the opening ceremony, my mom was, for the third time, arrested. | |
| And she was soon put into the local detention center in my hometown. | |
| So when we heard the news, it was really shocking to us because that was the first day of the Chinese New Year, which traditionally is the day that people visit each other, celebrate the Chinese New Year, exchange greetings and sending gifts. | |
| So it was an even bigger shock to my father because that morning was the time she saw his wife being grabbed from home for the third time. | |
| In my parents' apartment they have a security door which is made of steel. | |
| In the past they tried to break in and they didn't because it was secured. | |
| So this time my father was going out to throw out some trash. | |
| And two policemen were waiting in front of that door. | |
| And when the door was open, they forced in and started to ransack my parents' apartment. | |
| So they grabbed dozens of books of Falun Gong, which my mother normally read. | |
| So what was the reason that they did this? | |
| Why did they break into the house? | |
| Ransag the place and take your mother away. | |
| What was the... | |
| I believe they have been monitoring her for a long time. | |
| Because the first day of the crackdown on Falun Gong, July 20, 1999, That morning we were, like everywhere in China, we were practicing in a group way in a tiny square, very close to my parents' apartment. | |
| Like 20, maybe more, police cars came. | |
| And my mother was one of them that was taken to the police station the first day. | |
| So from the first day they knew she was a practitioner. | |
| She never gave up, and she started to clarify truth in her own way, like distributing flyers, paste stickers, and tell people truth sometimes randomly on the street to strangers. | |
| So they know very clearly that she is a farming practitioner. | |
| And so from in 2001, 2008, she was arrested and put into a labor camp, almost died there twice. | |
| So she has always been on record. | |
| That she is a Falun practitioner and she is doing such a thing which they don't like. | |
| The communist regime doesn't like. | |
| Let me ask you this. | |
| Right now, you have the Olympics, right? | |
| Yes. | |
| In Beijing. | |
| And your hometown, what's your hometown? | |
| Where is this happening? | |
| It's called Chifeng City, which is a town, a small town. | |
| And it's pretty close to Beijing, relatively, right? | |
| Yeah, like 400 miles, around 400 miles, I believe. | |
| So what's your take of this, that the Olympics are being held in Beijing? | |
| Everyone's watching the Olympic Games. | |
| The Olympic Games, of course, are a sign of unity, a sign of peace, a sign of essentially human rights, right, that the world is coming together and it's free and peaceful and everybody can compete against each other on this open platform. | |
| But yet, right there and behind the scenes, your mom and many like her are in this precarious situation of Being about to be put into prison, being put into prison, you said the forced labor camp system is abolished, but I suspect that they just rebranded it. | |
| Right, right, exactly. | |
| So what's your take on that? | |
| So let's put it this way. | |
| In 1936, Nazi Germany held an Olympic Games, and that became a record of, a bad record of Olympics. | |
| A bad state put powder, we call it put powder on their face to beautify Their existence, to persuade people that their existence makes sense. | |
| I would put it in a similar way to the Beijing Olympics. | |
| Not only this Winter Olympics, but also the Summer Olympics in 2008. | |
| Because that summer, three months before the Olympic Games, Summer Olympic Games, My mother was, for the second time, she was put into prison, tortured terribly locally, then thrown into a forced labor camp in the capital city of Indo-Mongolia. | |
| So it was like 1,000 miles away from my hometown and almost died there two months after the Olympics. | |
| I was watching the Olympic ceremony, the opening ceremony in 2008, in the city where I was working in Xi'an. | |
| It is fantastic. | |
| The opening looks fabulous. | |
| They used a world-class director to design that, to plan that ceremony, and almost every major country's leaders went there. | |
| It's like a huge banquet celebrating unity. | |
| We just said that unity is one of the spirits of the Olympic Games. | |
| But to me, when I was watching that fabulous ceremony, I was thinking of my mom, what she was doing. | |
| What was she suffering? | |
| I'm far, far away. | |
| I was like 2,000 miles from my mother. | |
| Something improper is happening in that country. | |
| Because she was arrested and tortured just for her belief in truthfulness, compassion, forbearance, and her willingness to continue to tell the truth even if the government Or the regime doesn't want her to do so. | |
| She was persisting her belief, which is a good belief, which is benefiting everyone. | |
| And she was put into prison, put into a labor camp to be tortured. | |
| To silence, to be silenced for that fabulous ceremony for the two weeks games that everyone from the world is focusing on. | |
| And this is the second time for the Winter Olympics again in Beijing, and she's arrested again. | |
| So this came from Minghui, and this looks like an underground reporter from Inner Mongolia. | |
| So in this part of the story, your mother had already been tortured for a long time. | |
| She went on a hunger strike. | |
| She's been hung upside down, not allowed to sleep, forced to do forced labor. | |
| She was shocked with electric batons over and over again. | |
| And so this is where this quote starts up. | |
| Quote, Ms. G, which is your mother, couldn't care for herself the next day and had no appetite. | |
| However, the prison guards insisted that Ms. G was faking illness and threatened her. | |
| Twenty days later, she was transferred to another team in order to do the forced labor. | |
| She refused and was beaten. | |
| Even though Ms. G had difficulty walking, other Falun Gong practitioners were not allowed to help her carry her food, and the authorities threatened to starve her to death. | |
| Anyone who tried to help Ms. G was verbally abused. | |
| Now, I wanted to pause here for a quick moment. | |
| When it says she was forced to do forced labor, do you know what type of forced labor she was doing? | |
| Oh, they produce tiny stuff that are sold very cheaply, especially to the international community, to other countries. | |
| And that is one of the reasons why Chinese products are so cheap internationally. | |
| In the system, how the labor camp system was designed, they pay the payment to The guards' salary or the management system's salary is really low. | |
| So they try to exploit their prisoners or people in the labor camp, which is allowed by the law and by the system, to force them to produce money for the guards, the management. | |
| So that is the way they make money, because everyone else is making higher money. | |
| So they use this way to encourage them to Force them to work to treat them badly. | |
| So the guards' pay is low, and so they compensate for their pay by forcing the inmates to work harder at the forced labor, which then some of that money goes into their own pocket. | |
| Yeah, exactly. | |
| Exactly. | |
| That's how it works. | |
| And that's why the forced labor camps is so efficient, because they have the motivation to make them work harder and harder. | |
| Now, that was only part of the interview. | |
| If you'd like to watch the full thing, you can find it over on Epic TV. I'll throw a link to it. | |
| It'll be right there at the very top of the description box. | |
| Hope you check it out. | |
| Hope you subscribe. | |
| And I hope that you join us on this journey of exploring this beautiful, beautiful world through honest journalism that is based in truth and tradition. | |
| Lastly, if you haven't already, smash that like button for the YouTube algorithm. | |
| Subscribe to this YouTube channel in order to get this type of honest news content delivered directly into your YouTube feed while YouTube still allows it. | |
| And also, if you have a Telegram account, consider following us at FactsMatter underscore Roman. | |
| So that way, if anything ever does happen here on YouTube, you can follow us on Telegram. | |
| And then until next time, I'm your host, Roman from the Epoch Times. |
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