Exhibit critical of China to make early exit from state building

An official from the Georgia Building Authority said it didn’t intend to make a political statement by showing the exhibit.

“The exhibit was not put on display on behalf of the GBA, or State of Georgia,” Paul Melvin, the GBA’s director of communications, said in an email. “Neither the GBA, nor the State of Georgia is endorsing the exhibit.”

Frank Xie submitted an application to place the exhibit in the foyer of the Floyd Building on behalf of a local Falun Gong group, the Falun Dafa Association of Atlanta. He hoped the paintings would bring awareness to the persecution the group says has persisted since Falun Gong practices were outlawed in China in 1999.

The application, which identified July 4 as the closing date of the exhibit, was approved, and it went on display May 2. But Melvin told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Friday that the exhibit was now scheduled to end Tuesday. The GBA did not respond to numerous attempts to confirm the original closing date or offer an explanation for the early removal of the exhibit.

The Floyd Building houses Georgia’s State Accounting Office, its Professional Standards Commission and the state’s ethics commission.

“These people can help change legislation. These are the people who will see it, and it’s not just for them, but for everybody,” Xie said. “As more people find out and know about this truth, they will stand up and say, ‘This cannot happen anymore.’ ”

The Chinese government has branded Falun Gong as a “cult” and has accused it of targeting “sick, weak and elderly people.”

Falun Gong has made numerous charges against the Chinese government, including accusations of torture and organ harvesting from religious dissenters.

A Canadian investigation by former Member of Parliament David Kilgour and human rights lawyer David Matas reported in 2007 that “there has been, and continues today to be, large-scale organ seizures from unwilling Falun Gong practitioners.”

The Chinese Embassy in Canada disputed the report, and a U.S. State Department investigation found no proof of the allegations.

Georgia’s courtship of Chinese business is as documented as it is profitable.

China is the state’s largest import nation and second-largest export market, according to a report the state’s Department of Economic Development puts out in conjunction with Georgia Power, while Chinese businesses accounted for more than 1,500 local jobs in 2013.

Xie, who calls Atlanta home but teaches marketing at the University of South Carolina-Aiken, says the intention of the exhibit wasn’t to criticize Georgia’s trade relationship with China.

“I am a business professor,” Xie said. “I am pro-business.”

Xie, however, did hope state representatives would consider addressing Chinese human rights issues.

“All we hope our officials are doing — what Georgians are doing — is reminding the Chinese government that it needs to pay attention to human rights,” he said, “or we can’t have business relationships.”

Mary Silver, a Falun Dafa volunteer, was blindsided by the news that the exhibit was being shuttered. She saw the exhibit’s message as a human rights issue, dealing with fundamental rights to freedom of expression and religion.

Earlier, she said it was important for the pieces to be seen in such a public place.

“I think one of the reasons Frank was so happy to get into the Sloppy Floyd Building was because he knew a lot of people would see it there,” Silver said. “I think the artists wanted to tell this story of the persecution they experienced directly. It’s about getting their story out there.”

That story was, for a time, part of Georgia’s narrative as well.

In April 2003, it came to the aid of Sam Lu, and Emory University graduate and Falun Gong adherent who had been arrested near his home in Shenzhen in 2000, along with his new wife, Zhou Xuefei.

While Lu escaped to the United States thanks to a still-valid passport from his college days, Zhou was not so lucky. She ended up in a Chinese re-education camp, a detainment process used against religious and political dissenters.

State Rep. Wendell Willard led the passage of House Resolution 624, which condemned the Falun Gong persecution and urged the federal government to seek Zhou’s release.

She was able to join her husband in Georgia more than a year later.

“The governor, legislators, Saxby Chambliss, Johnny Isakson, they were so awesome and did so much to try and free that lady. They passed legislation condemning the persecution in China,” Silver recollected. “It was unanimous.”