Friday, July 13, 2007

About my last three blogs

Note: I re-published my blogs of June 24 and June 28 yesterday.

I visited Warren Kinsella's bog last Saturday for the first time in a long while. - I have not got time for him lately. - My visit confirmed what I had suspected for almost two weeks, i.e., the hours of my recent blog postings had become the latest focus of yet another politicization.


First blog

It all started, quite unexpectedly, with my blog of June 24, How was your day yesterday. The hour of its posting was 9:22AM. The political interpretation - not what I intended to mean, I would like to emphasize - was that it had a resemblance to 9/11. Indeed, one might argue it gave meaning to "9/11 doubled".

Of course, when I compose my blogs, I never write the hours of their postings. As I said before, I normally use email to publish my blogs. If it is a long blog posting, I would spend hours, or even days because of my depression, time constraint or living condition, writing and editing it in a word processor beforehand. Then I copy and paste it onto my email program, edit it one last time, insert the necessary hyperlinks and finally, hit the send button. I do not pay attention to the clock while toiling these tasks. (Who would?) That there was a resemblance between the hour of this blog and 9/11 was a pure coincident.

In fact, I was quite distressed by my bad luck after I realized the resemblance hours after posting. -- With my situation dire as it was, I certainly did not want any additional problem coming up. -- But I also knew that the Bush administration and its allies would use every opportunity to demonize me. A such, this blog could not possibly escape the same treatment. I thought hard about various ways to remedy the happenstance.

I thought about manually changing the hour to, say, 9:23AM. But I have never done that before and I felt it would compromise the authenticity of my blog.

For a while, I thought about the possibility that it did not happen by chance, but was a deliberate sabotage on the part of Google, as I had a history of problems with them before. But I could not be sure. (I only posted a small portion of the problems online. Other curious incidents included: (1) For a long time, my position on the list of Burnaby, BC bloggers, which Blogger.com used to maintain, coincided with my age; (2) The increase of my profile view number was always 20; (3) I often encountered some technical difficulties when I needed to post a blog at some critical moment tied to the political environment; and (4) While my blog comes up on top of other search engines, Google has been surpressing my ranking for a long time, etc. )

I also thought about explaining, mathematically under a few reasonable technical assumptions, that one of my blog postings would bound to hit some ominous hours connected to 9/11 as long as I kept writing and publishing, given that I have posted hundreds of blogs already and still counting. But I realized that the problem was political, not mathematical or logical.

Finally, feeling fate had played a bad joke on me, I took the whole blog posting down. If you have followed my journey from the beginning, you know that deleting a whole posting was very rare in my blogging as I took integrity very seriously.


Second blog

The second blog, What happened on my Ottawa trip , was published at 11:25PM on June 28.

I started writing this blog while I was in Ottawa. The draft had been sitting there for quite some days. I hesitated to publish it because I felt what the Bush administration/Canadian government/CSIS/RCMP did to me personally was too dirty to be made public.

That evening, I reviewed some of the materials saved on my computer. It was after reviewing that day's Norman's Spectator that I felt I should confront whatever negative feelings I had and publish that blog. I copied and pasted the draft onto my Gmail account, inserted the hyperlinks, did the final editing. Self-conscious about the hour, I looked at the computer clock. It was 11:22PM. Since I had just been burned by the number 22, I decided to wait a couple of minutes, just to be safe. I moved away from my Gmail account window and surfed a couple of web pages. When I came back to my Gmail, the time was 11:25PM. Thinking that 11:25 should not have a problem, I immediately hit the send button.

(In my mind, the vast majority of the 720 minutes should not have any problems. And I do not know about you, but to figure out whether 11:22 or 11:25 - or any other minutes, for that matter - might have any bad political meanings would definitely take me more than 60 seconds. I did not carefully examine every minute of the day after my first blog to find out which ones might have bad political interpretations. For one thing, I did not have that kind of time luxury to do 720 examinations. For another, given my limited political knowledge and experience, even if I did examine every one of the 720 minutes, there was no guarantee that nobody in the world would find crazy political interpretations in the minutes that I had deemed safe to use, especially if one was bent on demonizing me. For similar reasons, I won't likely engage in this exercise in the future.)

It was the next day that I sensed that there was a "problem" with the hour 11:25, after reading Norman's Spectator and after some careful deliberation. The problem seemed to be that, since 25 is 5 squared and I am seen as the 5 th generation of Chinese leadership, one might argue that the hour 11:25 connects me with "9/11 squared". Indeed, as I learned last Saturday, Warren Kinsella's blog on that same day did confirm just such an interpretation. -- With six bulleted points, he basically implied that my candidacy for the 5 th generation of Chinese leadership had been toasted.

As for me, I felt I was being cursed with two problems in a row. I asked aloud (when nobody was around, of course) : " 老天爷为什么要这么捉弄我啊?" It appeared that I had no other way to fix the problem but to take the blog down again. However, taking down one blog was difficult enough for me. I just could not imagine that I would do that twice in a row. After some painful hesitation, I felt I had no choice but to take it down, which I did the next morning. Obviously, I was quite taken down by the whole experience, too. Indeed, for the first time since I embarked on my journey, I felt unsure of myself and I was at the end of my blogging career.


Third blog

It was after I felt resigned to my fate that I had second thought about my situation: Maybe it might turn out to be not that bad.

The reason was that, if the Bush administration gave such crazy interpretations along the line of 9/11 to these two blogs of mine - my previous experience told me that they definitely would even if I refuted such demonization with facts and logic - it would mean the end of my "political career", quote unquote, especially considering the appearance that the publication of my first blog on June 24 unexpectedly boosted President Hu Jintao's political standing, as evidenced by a major "important speech" he gave less than 24 hours later in the Central Party School. But wasn't "getting out of politics" something I had always wanted? As I often say, a large portion of my problems come from the perception that I am the 5 th generation of Chinese leadership and the resulting excessive and over-zealous political interpretations of every single one of my words and actions.

With this thought in mind, I felt relieved and was at peace with myself. I knew that there would always be people who would question my motive and demonize me no matter how many facts and logic I put forward to prove otherwise. I had always wanted to get out of this "f---ing business", to borrow an expression I learned about politics from Earl McRae when I was fasting and protesting in Ottawa. Now it appeared that I had just unwittingly done so.

The third blog, which was published at 8:25AM on July 5, came about completely spontaneously. The idea of the blog hit me during the breakfast that day. Since it's a simple blog, I did not need to write a draft beforehand. And one of the public computers at the shelter happened to be free. So I used it - rather than unpacking and using my own laptop - to post my blog. I went on and off the desktop fairly quickly, probably within a time span of a few minutes. This time, since I was free of all the worries, I was completely oblivious to the hour while posting. By the way, the desktop in the shelter doesn't even keep accurate computer time and freezes from time to time. It would have been virtually impossible for me to have control over the timing of my posting even if I had wanted to. (Just in case you are wondering: I don't have a digital watch. -- In any case, I would suggest that only an accurate digital clock showing all three components of the time could be useful here. )

Amazingly, this blog posting not only has an interpretation, the interpretation actually follows logically from the first two. Since eight is a lucky number in Chinese and usually means good fortune, this blog could mean that, having lost the candidacy for the 5 th generation of Chinese leadership, I should pursue "fortune squared".

Even more amazingly, this interpretation actually is part of my real intention all along, as I mentioned many times before. For example, during the last general election, after I sensed my side was going to win, I wrote my first blog with a monetary overtone.

Of course, the other, more prominent part of my goal is to make sure justice is served for Cecilia Zhang, and in so doing, to contribute building a better Canada. Some people may call my motive "enlightened self-interest". Some may simply call it "doing well by doing good." I would just say that doing the right thing is not easy, but sometimes it is also the right thing to do.

Update 20070730

最近一段时间,我时常在想:为什么会出现一连三个在时间涵义上有巧合的博客?如果是一两个孤立的巧合也就罢了,这么多巧合恐怕只能是天意了。我相信我的上天━━13亿中国人民是有大智慧的;那么,他在向我传递一种什么样的信息呢?

首先,我觉得我的上天理解我。就象我的先父一样,他知道我是个老好人,理解我对从政的顾虑,特别是中共的政治又是那么无情,所以他故意让我在头两个博客的时间上“犯错误”,将我明白无误地从第五代接班人的位置上解脱出来。

我的上天一次一次在我头上显灵,又这么理解我关注我,说明他对我的前途还是有某种设计的。我觉得他是在回应我当第六代接班人的请求。更为重要的是,上述第三个博客的时间涵义刚好是我的真正动机,考虑到承认个人私欲对于当前的中共来说是个“禁忌”,这意味着当我接班的时候,中国的政治将会发生巨大的变化。那时,中国的政治将会冲破这种或那种的“禁忌”,变得更加真实、有效。

这种变化是好的。本来每个人、包括领导人都是有个人利益的;这就象人民有人民利益、企业有企业利益、政党有政党利益、国家有国家利益一样,是很正常的。无论是在政治领域还是在经济领域,大家在公开承认这一点的基础上,制定公平的规则,然后都按规则办事,社会运转会更有效率,政治生活也会自然而然地朝民主方向发展。然而现在中国是“潜规则”盛行,人们普遍觉得活着累。

当然,承认个人利益并不等于我们就不提倡“无私奉献”的精神了。恰恰相反,正是因为“无私奉献”的难能可贵,我们才要大力弘扬它。但是,作为中国社会中流砥柱的执政党,我们不能将自己的行为规范建立在“自律”的基础上;民主监督才是预防和惩治腐败的有效手段。

如果我们看得更广阔一些的话,我们会发现目前中国社会普遍缺少真实。这种真实的稀缺又是从政治领域开始的。比方说,胡锦涛在台面上讲话冠冕堂皇,但用笔手发文和实际操作又完全是另外一套,这种虚伪不可能长久。即使政府完全控制了媒体,老百姓也不可能被永远蒙在鼓里;人们可以从社会现实与台面政策的日益加大的落差中、从整个社会的道德败坏、虚假成风、腐败成风中找到问题的根源。实际上,从最近人们对政府关于“假包子”新闻是假新闻的通告的质疑中可以看出,政府的公信力已大不如前了。这可是一个危险的征兆。

总之,现状不可长久,但改变现状又不可一蹴而就。我想到我接班的时候,中国的政治应该会多一些透明、少一些虚伪;在那种情况下,我想我也还是乐于接受人民赋予我的挑战的。

Thursday, July 05, 2007

"I can't speak for the Crown."

Lindsay Wold, Crown Counsel
Yesterday
Courtroom 213, New Westminster Provincial Court
 

Thursday, June 28, 2007

What happened on my Ottawa trip?

Similar to what I did in Vancouver on January 11 , the original date of my trial, I went to Ottawa on May 13, just days before my new trial date, to try to get on the news by seeking foreign intervention so that I could have a fair legal process in dealing with the minor charges resulting from my protests of Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up.

The foreign government in my mind was Russia and to a lesser extent, Germany, because, I thought, they were the two most influential countries aside from U.S., U.K., France. They therefore were most likely to stand up against the Bush administration and do the right things for me. Russia doesn't have a mission in Vancouver.

The 'very, very soft ' fix I referred to in my previous blog was, as most of you knew already, the bomb scare incident at Prime Minister "Steve" Harper's residence on the day I arrived at Ottawa.

I learned about the incident on the following day (Monday, May 14) from an Ottawa Citizen report via Norman's Spectator. I immediately realized it was a set-up to disrupt my plan to get on the news. Indeed, I even told an MP's office what I thought of the incident on that day.

The fix was obvious to me.

One clue was the timing. At about 5:00PM Sunday afternoon, I had visited the Russian embassy, thus revealing the intention of my Ottawa trip to the stalking RCMP/CSIS and federal government. (They probably had guessed it anyways the moment I bought a ticket to Ottawa.) It was right after I left the embassy that RCMP/CSIS staged this "bomb scare" incident at 24 Sussex Drive. Its purpose was to put pressure on potential foreign governments, particularly the Russian government, who might consider helping/sheltering me because they would label me as a suspect in a "bomb scare" targeted at the Prime Minister of Canada. That in itself would have been a big story, lavishly manufactured. Recall that RCMP issued an amber alert – when they should not have - after they orchestrated the abduction of Cecilia Zhang on October 20, 2003 in case I went public with my story on that particular day. It looks like RCMP is very experienced in creating this sort of publicity stunt.

The other clue was the description that "the man (had been) observed pacing in front of the residence before he threw the bag over the gate", similar to what I did before I tried to get into a press conference by Prime Minister "Steve" Harper on March 13, which led to the second charge that I have to deal with. -- I hesitated before entering the building because of concern that I might breach my bail condition.

And then came a great moment in Canadian security (via Norman's Spectator):


--A great moment in Canadian security

Sources said last night that the bag included cosmetics, shampoo, Vaseline and a padlock.


Dirty. Just dirty.

A question though: How much money did the police show cost the taxpayers?

Canada's national police force went into high gear yesterday afternoon -- shutting down Sussex Drive and scrambling canine and explosives units -- after a man threw a gym bag over the security gate in front of the prime minister's residence.

and

After two hours, the Mounties called off the active search, once the explosives unit concluded that the bag was not dangerous.

and more

After [the man fled], RCMP sounded the alarm, calling for assistance from the city's fire department, the paramedic service's tactical response team and the Ottawa police in addition to the Mounties' own bomb squad and canine tracking unit.


After I blogged about the bomb scare fix and said that I had at least one witness who could invalidate RCMP's frame of me, RCMP staged another bomb scare in early Friday evening, June 8, this time at the US embassy. Judging by the brief report filed by Ottawa Sun the following day, I think RCMP learned a lesson from my blog. This time, they did not "disclose" the contents of the bag. And they made sure that I was along when they staged the show. Of course, the timing of the show was not a coincidence: I made contact with the Russian embassy during that week, too.

June 9, 2007
RCMP alerted to bomb threat at U.S. embassy
Police cordon off the street in front of the United States Embassy as they investigate a suspicious package near the building in Ottawa, Friday, June. 8, 2007. (CP PHOTO/Jonathan Hayward) CANADA

OTTAWA (CP) — The RCMP and Ottawa police were called to the U.S. embassy Friday night after a suspicious package was found outside the building.

Police say the call came in around 6:36 p.m. when a package was found at the north end of the embassy along the fence line.

RCMP deemed the package suspicious and brought in their bomb squad to investigate.

A nearby bar and the apartments above it were evacuated and several neighbouring streets were closed to traffic while police removed the package.

There was no word late Friday on what was in the package.

(Ottawa Sun)

What these dirty ploys revealed was a cold war mentality of Bush administration and Harper government: They don 't want to make friends. They want to make enemies and as such, they have to demonize good people.

Looking back, I think RCMP was never far away from me during my Ottawa trip. I never had a chance in getting on the news. That's why I decided to give up and turn myself in. Other incidents:


  • During my stay in Mission shelter, the fire alarm was pulled a number of times. These incidents always occurred in the early morning hours. Each time, the building had to be evacuated when everyone was sleeping. The first false fire alarm went off and woke me up at exactly 4:00AM on a Sunday morning and made me extremely nervous. I became increasingly suspicious that they were the works of the RCMP undercover agents and scared that they would start a rumor in the shelter and blamed these annoying incidents on me.

  • One evening, because I could not sleep, I went into a bar just across the street from the Mission. I did not drink or talk to anyone. Simply staying in a crowd made me feel a little less depressed. Not long after I went there, a few gay looking people came near me and one of them started snapping pictures. By the time I realized what had happened, they had already left.

  • Lots of suspicious police movements around me. For example, on my way to the Russian embassy on Monday morning, May 14, a police car apparently wanted to let me know that I was being watched.

  • The day after I started an application with Ottawa welfare office to try to get a bus ticket back to Vancouver, Greyhound started a strike. Stuck in Ottawa, I later tried to seek similar help from dozens of other embassies. I believe federal government monitored my calls to some or all of them.

Postscript:

Speaking of Harper government and Bush administration playing the sex card to bully or demonize me, I should mention, once again, that RCMP has over the years sabotaged my efforts in attempting to find girlfriends. For privacy reason, I of course can't disclose the names of these woman.


First update 20070718


As I mentioned in my most recent blog, it was very difficult for me to write and publish the above blog posting. The “bomb scare” ploy targeted at me by the Bush administration and Harper government through their national security and law enforcement apparatus was too dirty. (The irony was, before the fall of 2006, the Bush administration’s prepared line of attack on me in case my struggle did become news was that I lacked civility of a politician, similar to Donald Rumsfeld’s ridiculous call on China to join in the “civilized” world.) The dirtiest part of the ploy was, of course, their playing the sex card. However, insofar as the sex card was played, the above incident was only the tip of an iceberg.

When I was booked in by the Richmond RCMP on Sunday evening, June 17, the arresting police officer asked me a strange question: “Do you have STD?” I immediately felt that I was being bullied for a reason because I had visited a Sexual Health Clinic operated by the city of Ottawa while I was there. The reason for my visit was, of course, I was afraid, while staying in a homeless shelter, that I might get some kinds of Hepatitis, which was mentioned several times on Norman’s Spectator while I was in Ottawa. It was a concern for me because I had tested positive for Turbocurlosis the last time when I stayed there back in 2005. (I got the contact information of the clinic from a city clerk when I asked her about Hepatitis. When I went in to the clinic, I had just wanted the information because, frankly, I did not even know the distinctions among various forms of Hepatitis. Then I found out that they offered a free blood test and decided to take one. However, the intake nurse asked me a bunch of ridiculous questions based on her false assumptions. I did not even complete the intake questionnaire.)

I did not write about this incident in my above blog posting because I could not be sure if it was part of a standard procedure to be asked such a question during the police book-in. Having been able to speak to a couple of lawyers in the past week, I am certain that it was not. As such, this incident serves to confirm that I had been carefully monitored by the federal government during my entire time in Ottawa.


Second update 20070718


I had been bullied about a medical condition of mine for a long long time. I was diagnosed with Koro while at SFU and Lawrence Weldon was the only person, aside from my doctors, who knew about it. (I told him only the name of my condition in a couple of sentences in his office, and only in his capacity as my Senior Supervisor before I realized he had something to do with the reference letter that started everything. He would later bully me about it, too. For example, when he could not or would not answer a clear and specific question from me, namely, why I was not encouraged to apply for a position at the Statistical Consulting Service at SFU, during one of our conversations in or around 1997, he would say “I am not a psychoanalyst …” to obstruct.) But as the title of my first report, A Jobless Immigrant without Privacy, suggested, my entire personal medical file was breached.

Although I did not make them clear in my report, Lisa Caruso, Ya-Li Wei and Edward Ng all bullied me about it.

Agent Lisa Caruso

Lisa Caruso claimed in our conversation that she studied Psychiatric Nursing, among many other diverse academic subjects. I do not know whether she really studied PN, but I knew she intended to send me a message about my medical condition. Read the part on my dealings with her in Chapter 6 of my first report.

Gay agent Ya-Li Wei

Also from Chapter 6 of my first report:

Out of nowhere, [Ya-Li Wei] suggested: “No offense, but I think you should see a psychiatrist”, without saying where he got the idea, or, what he thought my problem was. Knowing he was bullying me, I simply replied: “Maybe I should. But I can’t do that without any privacy protection.” He paused for a second and nodded: “I think you got a point.” – This part of conversation was mostly in English.

Note that in Mr. Wei’s case, I did not even mention to him anything related to my mental health. From our conversation, it was obvious that he knew my medical condition.

Lawyer Edward Ng

Again from Chapter 6 of my first report:

[Lawyer Edward Ng] told me that I was going to embarrass myself if I went to the court [with my civil case]. – This was plain bullying.

As it turned out, to embarrass and humiliate me by trying to make my medical condition public was the real objective behind federal government’s meddling of my current court process and they have already partially succeeded in doing so. This is what I called malicious prosecution in my previous blog and one of key reasons I decided to write about it.

Former Prime Minister Brain Mulronry

After I started my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I experienced a lot of bullying of a sexual nature by Canadian political and intellectual elites. I documented some of them elsewhere in my blogs. (If I have time, I will put up more.) As for bullying me specifically along the line of my medical condition, I will use former PM Brain Mulroney as an example.

The following was from a report by the Globe and Mail on May 14, 2005 (via Andrew Coyne):

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney has denied the claim by controversial Montreal caterer Giuseppe (Joseph) Morselli that they know each other.

Mr. Morselli, portrayed at the Gomery inquiry as an influential Liberal fundraiser, once bragged in an interview with The Globe and Mail that he was a good friend of Mr. Mulroney.

However, through his spokesman Luc Lavoie, Mr. Mulroney rejected that assertion, saying of Mr. Morselli that he "wouldn't know him from Adam or Eve."

Why did the Prime Minister bully me? Because he wanted to save the then Paul Martin government from falling at the wake of explosive testimony at the Gomery Inquiry. If my struggle and cause became news, the Martin government would certainly fall. Note that he, through his people such as Pat MacAdam and Earl McRae, had wanted to help me earlier in my journey. His change of mind, I believe, was due to the influence of the Bush administration, as I mentioned before.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

Come back to the “bomb scare” ploy at prime minister “Steve” Harper’s residence right after I left Russian Embassy on the day I arrived at Ottawa. It was reported that the next day, Ms. Rice, in a brief comment on US-Russia relationship aboard a plane, repeatedly used the word big. (For brevity, I hyperlinked other nuts in her comment.)

"It is a big, complicated relationship, but it is not one that is anything like the implacable hostility" that clouded ties between the United States and the Soviet Union.

"It is not an easy time in the relationship, but it is also not, I think, a time in which cataclysmic things are affecting the relationship or catastrophic things are happening in the relationship," Rice said.

…...

"This is a big and complex place that is going through a major historic transformation... things are not going to change overnight, but frankly we would like to see them change faster than they are changing, and for the better," Rice said.

When I read the report, I could not believe it. What was she thinking when she uttered that word repeatedly?


Third update 20070718


As shown above, the federal government knew all along the details of my medical file. As such, they knew I was not delusional and my medical condition had nothing to do with the minor charges associated with my protests of the Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up. The reasons that they, by influencing almost all the parties involved in my case, i.e., at least one of the judges, the Crown Counsel, my second Bail Supervisor, and the court-appointed psychiatric nurse, made my mental health an issue were (1) to discredit my protests; (2) to embarrass and humiliate me for doing the right thing and thus try to force me give up my cause. Their ultimate goal was still to ensure the continued cover-up of this hideous crime against an innocent child.

My second Bail Supervisor

Judi Webber came to the Burnaby Community Correction - the office I had been reporting as part of my bail conditions - at the end of March 2006 and took over my file from my previous Bail Supervisor. I did not suspect that she was an undercover agent for CSIS/RCMP until after she brought a police officer to my residence on July 21, 2006, the day of Dr. Jiang Guobing’s strange death in Toronto. (I later asked her about the rationale behind the visit as I had not had any non-compliance of my conditions. She could not give me a straight answer. )

Afterwards, probably because she felt that her cover had been blown, she became brazen in bullying me. She would ask me smugly, in lieu of greeting, during my reporting: “How is your doctor?” At first, I thought I heard her wrong and asked her repeat herself. She would then correct herself by saying that she was asking about my back pain. That’s was a unusual way to ask about my back pain, I thought initially. However, the same exact exchange would take place a few more times in her office. Indeed, the only time when she asked me straight “How is your back?” was on her last day in this office. My third Bail Supervisor was also present, doing the training and/or file transfer.

By asking me “How is your doctor” repeatedly, she was clearly sending me a message that she and her employer knew my “secret” at my doctor’s.

Judge Angelomatis

He was the judge who threatened me with 18 months jail sentence on December 11, 2006, before my trial had even started. Every lawyer I asked, said that was very unusual.

As I mentioned in a previous blog, I had pleaded for an adjournment on medical ground (because of my back pain) on that day. At first, he said that I needed a doctor’s note. When I responded that I had one, he expressed doubt on the veracity or usefulness of the note. Looking back, I think he was just trying to find an excuse to contact (or threaten to contact) my doctor. Later, when I presented the note to him, he would read aloud the note into the record, and in particular, spell out my doctor’s name. Indeed, he spelled out my doctor’s name again during a later court proceeding on January 11, 2007. Why did he need to do that repeatedly?

The Psychiatric Nurse

I had a meeting with David Bernier, a Psychiatric Nurse at Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission (FPSC) on April 18, 2007 as directed by my Bail Supervisor. It was after the meeting that I strongly suspected that Mr. Bernier had been influenced by the federal government.

The Crown Counsel

As I noted in this blog, it was after the Crown Counsel saw that I was doing rather well in my exchange with the Judge Angelomatis that she brought out the subject of my mental health based on letter(s) written to them by Judi Webber.

And Why did Ms. Webber think that not only I had a mental health problem, but it was “declining”? The reasons she gave in her letters, if I could sum it up, were: (1) I was given a choice of either attend the FPSC or report daily to her and I had chose to report daily; (2) I continued to post articles and remarks about the Cecilia Zhang case on the Internet; (3) I thought she was part of the conspiracy; (4) I posted comments referring to a gun on July 19, 2006.

Of course, as part of the conspiracy, she knew that my cause of protest was valid. And as a very shrewd player of Canadian politics, RCMP knew what my July 19, 2006 blog meant.

As to why Forensic was on my bail conditions in the first place, all the Crown Counsel did was to argue in my very first appearance in court that my Internet postings were "not really suggestive of a mind that is operating sort of on a logical [ground]." Of course, they knew that their argument was nonsense. That’s why they later excluded, or attempted to exclude my website materials from the disclosure documents.

Overall, it is truly a malicious prosecution I am facing.


Update 20070726

I knew the legal process I had so far has not been fair. But frankly, after I decided in Ottawa to turn myself in, I just wanted to get this matter over with. Also, by disclosing above the real, malicious motive behind the prosecution orchestrated by the federal government from behind the scenes, overcoming all sorts of negative feeling I had on disclosing my medical condition, I hoped that I would not be bullied anymore in the court system.

However, my latest experience in court just made me even more upset. After my FTA (fail to appear) charge, the Crown indicated that they would proceed the new information by indictment. Accordingly, I had planned to make a new election of a judge-and-jury trial because it would be more difficult for the government to manipulate such a trial.

On my appearance on July 4, the Crown Counsel, Ms. Lindsay Wold, still maintained that they would proceed by indictment. I did not have a chance to make the election on that day because the Judicial Case Manager adjourned the proceeding so that I could obtain a counsel. (I tried to explain to the JCM why I could not obtain a counsel. But he stopped me as soon as I said the word conspiracy. I also raised the issue of disclosure as well.)

On my following appearance on July 18, I indicated that I would like to have a judge and jury trial. However, the Crown Counsel, Ms. T. Maley, said that she was not sure how they would proceed. The JCM adjourned the proceeding and asked me to come back in 15 minutes so that Ms. Maley could find out how they would proceed. When I came back, the Crown Counsel was still not sure, saying “by indictment” one minute and “summarily” another. When I tried to recount what other Crown Counsels had said on this subject, she yelled at me to go to the Crown Counsel office and talk to somebody there. And she added: “Do you know where the Crown Counsel office is?” The JCM adjourned the proceeding for another week.

During my appearance yesterday, the Crown Counsel, represented by Ms. T. Maley again, was firm that they would proceed summarily. As such, I had no choice but to accept a trial by judge. I was surprised by the change and hesitated to sign the Trial Notice slips. Ms. Maley practically bullied me into signing them: “Things change. Do you understand that, Mr. Yu? Do you understand that?”

Looking back, I think the only reason that the Crown changed the way they would proceed was to deny me a judge-and-jury trial, similar in purpose to their swearing a new information in March 2006.

Update 20070730

Come back to my Ottawa trip again. As usual, our national media followed me every step of the way along my struggle, but they would not report the cause I was fighting for. On the contrary, their tradition has been to work against me ever since I started my journey to seek justice for Cecilia three years ago. (As I said before, some of our journalists are neither pro-Liberal, nor pro-Conservative. They are simply pro-bigotry.)

National Post, in particular, willingly served as a propaganda tool for the federal government. On June 7, one day before the staged bomb scare incident at or near the U.S. embassy in Ottawa, the Post fronted a lengthy report RETURN OF THE SPYING GAME, with the byline: “Russian, Chinese espionage targets U.S. secrets”. Causal readers scanning the headline might get the impression that Russian and Chinese spies were working together in Canada to obtain U.S. secrets. Of course, if you actually read through the article, you won’t find anything in the report to substantiate that impression. This is what I call a case of Headline Sting. Such scams took place more and more often recently, especially in the U.S. media, where China was often implicated in America’s “war on terror” in the headlines, mostly suggesting some kind of linkage to Iran. Only when you actually read through the newspaper articles, you will find that those implicit linkages reflected in the headlines are not backed up by a single shred of fact.

Do newspaper editors know the impression such headlines would give to their readers? Of course they do. In fact, I would suggest that the wording of the headlines were deliberately chosen to invoke just such an impression of linkage in the readers. But why would they do that, you might ask. Simple. Because the Bush administration wanted to link China with terrorism. Just read my analysis of the infamous Boston dirty bomb scare on or around President George W. Bush’s second inauguration and other incidents here.

Now, imagine what a cold war propaganda “scope” it would have been if the Russian embassy in Ottawa had decided to shelter me in June. Canadian public, having just gotten the impression that Chinese and Russian spies were working together in Canada against U.S. interest, found out that a Chinese suspect responsible for repeated bomb scares at the Prime Minister’s residence and the U.S. embassy, sought protection at the Russian embassy. Not only would this have been a bigger story than the cover-up of Cecilia Zhang murder, it would also have been an easier sell to the public due to the Headline Sting days earlier by National Post. I could almost visualize the sensational headline all across the country: RUSSINA EMBASSY HABOURS CHINESE TERRORIST.

Of course, all these would have been manufactured propaganda, orchestrated by our law enforcement and national security apparatus with a die-hard cold war mentality. No wonder the headline of the National Post article, RETURN OF THE SPYING GAME, emitted such a cold-war nostalgia.

I should point out that the story about alleged Chinese spies operating in Canada gained prominence in the media at the end of 2004, two months into my fasting and protesting in Ottawa. I read the National Post front page report by Robert Fife on December 29, 2004 while staying at the Mission shelter in Ottawa at the time. I believe the publication of that report was a pre-emptive measure in advance to the then Prime Minister Paul Martin’s visit to China about 10 days later, as implied in the report. The federal government, especially those responsible for Cecilia Zhang’s abduction and murder, was worried that my cause might become public. (The Mulroneyites had not turned against me at the time.) That report served to create the false impression in Canadian public that China was not a friendly country. To further bully me and put pressure on me, all three national newspapers conspired to publish the exactly same photo on their respective front pages on January 6, 2005, one day I posted my article Summary of connections to Cecilia Zhang case. Margaret Wente also wrote about “a deadbeat brother-in-law” in her notorious Globe column on that day. The message to me was clear: Their camera had been inside my residence.

And who put the camera inside my residence? At the time when I wrote my second report during last general election, I did not know that RCMP/CSIS was the culprit of Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder. I was only highly suspicious of RCMP/CSIS involvement in harassing me and in the sabotage of my career, as I wrote in Chapter 3 of the report, because those incidents were so unusual. Looking back, I can see that RCMP/CSIS has been devoting their resources in this kind of shenanigans long before Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder.

The irony is, in shedding light on the ludicrousness of the Bush administration’s attempt to associate Chinese people with terrorism, I brought along some useful advice that they appeared to have heeded (for a while, at least). Even the head of CSIS cracked some nuts publicly on or around January 17, 2007, as reported by Ottawa Citizen.

Canada's spy master, of all people, is warning that excessive government secrecy and draconian counterterrorism measures will only play into the hands of terrorists.

"The response to the terrorist threat, whether now or in the future, should follow the long-standing principle of 'in all things moderation,' " Jim Judd, director of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service, said in a recent Toronto speech.

……

"Over-reaction to terrorism, it should be remembered, is a fundamental objective of most terrorists in history. We should not accommodate their goals in this regard."

So, the next time when you read newspaper report saying 1,000 Chinese spies operate in Canada or half of Canada's counterintelligence efforts are devoted to China, just throw the newspaper into garbage.


Update 20070815

The Canadian and U.S. governments’ primary purposes in staging those “bomb scares” incidents in Ottawa were (1) to minimize the impact of the news of Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up and (2) to demonize me as I am seen as a future leader of China.

However, these incidents also had a deep personal impact on me, which, I believe, was also part of governments' intention. Naturally, I had to ask myself: Since nobody had accused me of anything, should I write about them? If I wrote about them, would it bring me more legal trouble unnecessarily? Of course, when the governments embedded the sex card in those dirty ploys, it just made my decision that much harder. In a sense, I felt, these ploys were extreme tactics of bullying, a major theme of my entire experience in Canada.

And believe me, bullying does have an impact on a victim’s psychology. To me, it made me self-conscious, worried, nervous, aggravated my depression from time to time and generally had a range of negative effects on me. These impacts sometime were reflected in my blogs as well. Here I will present three cases to illustrate.

Case 1

I believe there is a misconception out there that I am for unification of Taiwan by force, despite my clear stand reflected in my writings in Spring 2006 to the contrary. The Bush administration was largely responsible for creating that misconception about me, in line with their repeated attempts to cast me as belligerent. However, a couple of my writings under the negative psychological impact of bullying, may have caused other people to buy into such a misconception, despite the flimsiness of the misinterpretations of my writings.

As I you all know, along my way to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang, I stumbled upon the conspiracy to instigate a conflict across Taiwan Straits on or around the time of last Canadian election. Earlier this year, I stumbled upon yet another conspiracy by the Bush administration and Blair government to instigate a war with Iran. It was around the time when I was writing my analysis of the crisis over the 15 captured British soldiers that I gradually sensed the crazy attack on my motive with respect to Taiwan.

As can be seen from my analysis of the crisis, I pretty much had enough information to bust this conspiracy in early April when Iranian President released those British soldiers. In fact, I knew that the next thing I should do was to inform the U.S. Democrat leaders, even before New York Times published a series of editorials giving me such a hint on April 6 (Guantánamo Follies), April 7 (The Real Fumble in Damascus) and April 8 (Hot and Cold). Indeed, the third Time editorial seemed to convey a sense of frustration that I had not acted fast enough: “ ... costs of doing nothing will be far greater than the costs of acting now.” (I should add that the following day, The Guardian newspaper picked up the Times message and cracked nuts in their editorial In praise of ... hot cross buns with this curious line: “this clearly is a bun with time on its side.”) Of course, my slowness in writing was due to the usual personal reasons I mentioned many times before.

What prompted me to think about Taiwan were two events, both connected to the Bush administration:

  1. On April 9, U.S. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack commented on the “right” UN Security Council sanction against Iran: "What we are looking for are reasonable Iranian leaders who view the cost-benefit calculation and see that …” The phrase “cost-benefit calculation” sounded awfully like a nut from the Times editorial the day before.
  2. On April 10, Washington Post columnist David S. Broder, who had previously sent me lots of messages on behalf of the White House, wrote a column titled Time For a Bargain on the War.

It took me a while to figure out what the White House was trying to convey. From the April 8 Times editorial, I knew the advice of the editorialist to me was: “Strike the iron while it’s hot, otherwise you will miss another opportunity to get on the news.” So the cost in the message meant my personal cost. But the State Department spokesman was apparently talking about cost and benefit of national importance. And he seemed to telegraph to everyone that my slowness in writing was due to my pondering some issues of national importance. (Wrong, of course.) Examining the title of Mr. Broder’s column the following day, I got the sense that the issue the spokesman was referring to was war. Since the only possible war I knew China would get involved in was for Taiwan, and I had already concluded that “the true aim of Bush administration's Iran policy had always been in favor of military strike”, Bush administration’s message to me appeared to be: “If you keep secret about the conspiracy involving the 15 British soldiers (or maybe wash it down a bit), we would like to be able to continue our plan to attack Iran and in which case, we will let you take Taiwan by force.”

At the time, I thought this message coming from the Bush administration - if that was their message - was crazy, as I had not realized that one of the sentences in my earlier Chinese blog Inside Story Behind China’s ASAT Test could be misinterpreted. I had always advocated peaceful development across Taiwan Straits. Nothing good will ever come out of a war, and I would especially hate to see Chinese attacking Chinese. Bush administration’s “bargain on wars"? I didn’t know what kind of logic was that. Once you are an bandit, I guess, everyone in your eyes is an bandit.

Another reason for my ignoring Bush administration’s message was that, to me, there is no bargain on truth. What I had been doing with my blogs since I embarked on my journey to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang was to report my experience in a straightforward manner, even if such reporting might occasionally have negative impact on me personally. This major event I had just experienced with respect to the 15 captured British soldiers deserved the same treatment, I thought. Besides, I really hoped that U.S. opposition leaders would be interested in this story and thus help make my cause public.

On April 17, I published the third installment (on Tony Blair) of my series Wildly Oscillating Interpretations. As everybody could see, there was enough information in that blog to draw the necessary and inevitable conclusion of a conspiracy to attack Iran by the U.S. and U.K. Not surprisingly, Mr. Bush reacted angrily to my telling the truth by issuing a threat against the Sudanese government in a speech the following day, as China was widely recognized to have some oil interest in Sudan. (I should add that Mr. Blair reacted by pursuing the subject of climate change and convincing Mr. Bush to join him, too. Complaining about China and other developing countries’ greenhouse emissions soon gained momentum in international media and on the world stage, cumulating in a “deal” at the G8 conference in Germany. A senior Malaysian government official called the approach by these western countries “green imperialism”.)

On April 23, I finally published my complete analysis of the crisis over the captured British soldiers. Initially, I noticed that the Bush administration was quite beaten by my solid analysis, as reflected in Mr. Bush’s weak interview on Charlie Rose and his out-of-character dance with a group of African musicians.

However, they soon hit me back. As usual, when they could not find problems in my facts and logic, they attacked my motive, this time on Taiwan. And the only fact they relied upon was a rhetorical question I asked twice in my analysis: “What did I know about such an incident thousands of miles away?” That’s why we saw on May 1, Mr. Bush said in a speech rejecting Congress’ bill in setting a deadline for withdraw from Iraq: “That means Americans' commanders in the middle of a combat zone would have to take fighting directions from politicians 6,000 miles away in Washington, D.C. ” The underlying message was that I, as a “politician”, was directing a military operation thousands of miles away in Taiwan Straits.

Why did I asked the same question twice in my analysis? Here is the story. In my November 24, 2006 blog Nuclear issue redux, I asked a couple of rhetorical questions such as “Who has heard of a Buddhist jihadist?” and “After all, who are we to contemplate what's in God's mind?” The same New York Times - believe it or not -attacked me three days later with the editorial When Don't Smoke Means Do. The smart editorialist gave a complete opposite interpretation to what I intended to mean with those rhetorical questions, i.e., the normal interpretation of a rhetorical question. And I think the bullying attack did left a mark in my sub-consciousness. That’s probably why, when I found that I had written the same rhetorical question twice in my analysis of the crisis, instead of considering deleting one of them, I simply provided the answer so that there would not be any confusion or deliberate attack this time around. Who could have thought that the Bush administration seized this slight untidiness in my writing as evidence that I was directing a military operation thousands of miles away? (Another rhetorical question! Sorry about that.)

After I realized the basis of Bush administration’s misinterpretation, I examined my previous writings and found that a sentence in my Chinese blog Inside Story of China’s ASAT Test published on March 2, was probably misinterpreted:

“先看看伊拉克,再看看下文中布什政府对我和胡锦涛的不同对待,其真正目的就一清二楚了。”

What I meant was, of course, that the Bush administration’s real goal in invading Iraq was about oil, rather than to build a democracy. (A view I still maintain.) The Bush administration probably had interpreted it falsely that, because of their trouble in Iraq, I was calling China to take the opportunity to take Taiwan by force. Of course, I did not think along this line at all.

Why didn’t I mention the word oil in my original sentence? Again, I was too self-conscious, even a little scared of mentioning it.

Frankly, when I wrote my Chinese article for the coming Canadian election in September 2005, Media Bias in Covering Pacific Gateway, oil probably was something in my mind. Objectively, I should have realized that there was nothing wrong for me to praise Mr. Harper’s idea of “exploiting the growing demand of China, India and others for our natural resource sectors” and advocate increased trade in those sectors - including oil - between Canada and other Asian countries. But I had been constantly attacked by Canadian pundits for my Chinese background even before I realized that Chinese government might have a job for me in late Summer 2005, and later, realized that I was a candidate for the next generation of Chinese leadership. These bullying attacks made me exceedingly worried that I would be accused of doing Chinese government’s bidding. Of course, when the Bush administration over-reacted after Mr. Harper’s winning the election by mounting a huge media campaign on the importance of Canadian oil to American interests, that had a psychological impact on me as well.

As I stated many times before, my motivation has always been to seek justice for Cecilia Zhang and to a lesser extend, to seek justice for myself as well. Indeed, not only was doing Chinese government’s bidding not my objective, as I followed Chinese politics more and more, I became more and more disillusioned with CPC’s internal politicking, especially their hypocrisy. For example, on the surface and to the Chinese people, Mr. Hu Jintao, the current party chief, is still paying lip service to his predecessor’s theoretical contribution to the party, i.e., Mr. Jiang Zemin’s “Three Represents”. However, his writer would deliberately misinterpret Jiang’s thought as calling for closer ties between the emerging capitalists and CPC in an online article published as recently as on July 18. Even Mr. Wang Lixiong, a famous Chinese dissident thinker, could see “Three Represents” was an attempt - however clumsy it might be, according to Mr. Wang - to set a few principles for the coming political reform in China. Indeed, as I became more and more confused by Mr. Hu’s stand, sometimes I wondered whether he had a stand at all. In short, I am hardly a CPC guy.

Case 2

As I mentioned in the fourth installment (on “Steve” Harper) of my Wildly Oscillating Interpretation series, I had problem coming up with examples of Harper’s nuts-cracking because, for a long time, I thought he was on my side, therefore, I did not take notes on his nuts-cracking. Even with this problem, I decided to pull off an example involving Mr. Harper. The following is from my draft of that blog:

Pulled-off

After I threw my protest flyers into the Commons floor while Paul Martin was speaking during the Question Period on Tuesday, December 14, 2004, the last day of Parliament for fall 2004, after weeks of fasting and protesting, Mr. Harper acknowledged me in a light-hearted way, as reflected in his comments recorded by the Hansard: “Mr. Speaker, I think I heard at least one person who did not believe [what the Prime Minister Paul Martin said].”

Why did I pull it off from my published version? Because just a couple of weeks before I composed that blog, I had a meeting on April 18 as per my bail condition with David Bernier, a psychiatric nurse at the Forensic Psychiatric Services Commission. Mr. Bernier, I believe, had been influenced by the federal government, as I mentioned in a update above. He bullied me, among other things, about that incident on Parliament Hill and implied that the federal government could charge me if they wanted to. (The Commons security people who detained me briefly after I threw the fliers, released me with only a verbal warning of not entering any of the Parliament buildings again. I had long thought the incident was over.)

Case 3

You all know I have been burned by the hours of publication of my recent three blogs. As a result, I became very self-conscious of time. I believe the following incident was known to the governments, but probably not to other people, as the government knows everything about me. (By selectively disclosing information to the media, the governments are able to better manipulate them.)

My blog About My Last Three Blogs, published on July 13, was actually finished on July 11. Because of the number 11 in the date, I was quite scared of publishing it on that day. However, I could not stay outside past midnight to publish it as the homeless shelter I was staying had an evening curfew at 11:00PM. So I wondered if there were ways I could send my email (my preferred way of publishing my blogs as it keeps an original copy in my email box) on a specified future date and time. That evening, I did some search on the Internet to try to find out. I learned from a web page that Outlook could do it.

I thought I had Outlook on my computer. (Later, I realized I only had Outlook Express, which was not adequate for the task.) However, being a computer idiot as I was, I did not know how to download my emails from either Gmail or SFU’s Webmail to Outlook. I was at SFU downtown campus at the time. So I asked someone at the computer helpdesk to help me. He did help me download my SFU emails to my Outlook Express. He also made me realize that I needed the full version of Outlook to make “sending email at a specified time” work, according to the instruction of that web page.

If I had had the required software, I would have started publishing my latest blogs at some fixed hour, thus eliminating any chance of misinterpretation of the hours of my publication. For now, I will just have to use the update method to post my writings.

By the way, in the evening of July 29, I “announced” that I would post two updates the next morning around 8:00AM. I did so not to send out some hidden messages but to give myself some real pressure to finish those two updates, because I had found that a mere mental deadline just wouldn’t work for me. Indeed, I forced myself sleep only a couple of hours that evening, a fact you could verify with the shelter staff. Even with that effort, I still could not finish my writings on time. (I think I posted them around noon.) That’s just how slow and difficult it is for me to write.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

How was your day yesterday?

Hmmm. Interesting question. Let me see.

I woke up at 2:50 yesterday morning. Couldn't sleep. Decided to catch up with some reading.

A good decision. The lounge/dinning room, the only place where I could use my laptop in this shelter, was quiet. I did some reading until 6:30 - the only productive period, as it turned out, for my whole day - when people started coming in. I started drawing attention, which was not a good thing.

(Have you ever lived with homeless people? Do you know how to live with homeless people?)

I packed up my laptop and had some breakfast. I went back to my bed to try to catch up with some sleep.

But I could not. Maybe it was because it was too bright and the blinds were stuck and I could not close them.

Got up around 8:00AM. Had some more breakfast.

(Have you ever lived homeless? -- You don't refuse food. You never know when you might go hungry.)

Decided to go to the library. But it would not be open until 9:30. So I waited in the lounge of the shelter.

Got to the library at 9:35. Soon after I sat down, I felt really sleepy. After all, I had only slept for less than four hours the night before. I almost dozed off around 11:00. It was then that I decided I needed to get back to the shelter because we were allowed into our room between 12:30 and 2:00. -- I had planned to stay in the library until close to get some real work done. (I needed to prepare for my court appearances. Besides, I knew you all were waiting to be entertained by my blog. Yes? No?)

I had my lunch at the shelter. As soon as the door opened at 12:30, I got back to my room. But you know what? My sleepy bug was gone! I got up around 1:30 frustrated, knowing my whole day would be toast.

Indeed it was.

I hesitated to go back to the library again because I knew I would not be effective in my half-awake state. Besides, it would take me 20 minutes to walk to the library.

Having let some of the people see my laptop, I decided to use my laptop in the lounge. I would just have to be extra careful lest it got stolen. (The first day I checked in Ottawa Mission in 2005, I saw two guys stealing a laptop. I made a statement with police and indicated my willingness to testify. I heard that they caught one (?) of the guys but did not recover the laptop.)

But no, you could not possibly work in this environment. They were too many distractions. Besides, working on my laptop made me seem aloof and not fit in. After all, I am one of the homeless.

That's it. Since it was against the rules to sleep or snooze in the lounge, I decided to take a walk. I went to a nearby shopping mall and wandered around a bit in my half-awake state. And there came the highlight of the day: I made 10 bucks by participating in a market research!

It was the first time I had any money in my pocket since I turned myself in to the police last Sunday night, except for the two quarters the jail staff gave me when I got back my personal belongings from them last Tuesday evening.

(Do you know what it is like when you are homeless and have no money in your pocket? Do you know what it is like sleeping in a public place when you can't find a shelter? Do you know what it is like being hungry for more than 24 hours? And above all, do you know what it is like fighting in these kinds of conditions, all by yourself, an all-powerful government who would use the dirtiest tricks on you? -- Purely rhetorical questions.)

With money in hand, I went to a dollar store and bought myself a pair of slippers. I had been wearing the same pair of sneakers since I left for Ottawa on May 12 and I needed to treat my feet better.

I got back around 4:00, watched TV in the lounge, had dinner around 5:00, took another walk and went to bed early around 8:30. Had a relatively good sleep and got up around 4:30. And here you are, another blog just for you.

Have yourself a nice day.

Update 20070713:

A staff member told me that this homeless shelter is actually the best in Canada. Having lived there for almost three weeks, I do not think he exaggerated.

I did some editing to the blog as well.


Update 20070806

My 30 days is up tonight at this shelter in downtown Vancouver. I don’t know where I am going to sleep tomorrow night and I really don’t want to end up in a shelter in downtown eastside.

Depressed.

Wednesday, June 13, 2007

Sad

I came to Ottawa a month ago to try to get on the news because, only when the Canadian public knows about my story, will it be possible for me to have a fair legal process to deal with the minor charges resulting from my protests of the Cecilia Zhang murder cover-up. However, due to federal government's interference and control behind the scenes - as they had always been doing - my efforts have not been successful. As such, it's probably time to surrender myself to the authorities.

I was not trying to avoid the trial itself. This I have always maintained, most recently in my March 20 letter to former president of France, Mr. Jacques Chirac: "I am rational in my anticipation of the possible consequences (of my protests) and prepared to accept fair penalties." What I was trying to avoid was the malicious prosecution mounted on a rigged process.

Although it would be extremely unfair and unjust to throw me in jail for my protests, going jail itself actually is not my biggest worry. My biggest worry now is my mother in China.

I wrote occasionally about my mother in my blogs before. I probably should have written a lot more about her, given the consideration I have to take her into in making virtually all my major decisions and the salient support she offers me. In a sense, she is the unsung heroine of my story.

Of course, she does not know a thing about my fight for justice for Cecilia Zhang. I did not tell her because I did not want her to be worried about me. She understood my intention and cooperated with me, even though she wanted very much to know about my daily struggle. Most significantly, she knew in her heart that I was not "running away" from my filial piety, and she knew that, whatever I was doing, I was doing the right things. Realizing that she could not offer me much advice, she prayed for me everyday. What more could you ask for from a mother?

Yet, what a dismal life she herself has been living: As a Chinese mother, she yearned for a normal life in her final years and as such, everyday she did not see me was a day of torment for her. And I have not been able to visit her for more than five years. Added to that is her deteriorating health. Just in the last 30 days since I came to Ottawa, she fell sick three times. And I am not talking about those day-to-day ailments of a person of her age and physical condition. These three were all serious enough that warranted hospital visit and/or in-home medical care. To use her own words: " 年纪大了,说病就病。"

The truth of the matter is, she won't be able to withstand hearing the news that I am in jail. Since phoning her daily was the least I could do in lieu of my filial piety, I have been doing exactly that for the past few years. Having been put in jail back in March, though, I knew that jail conditions would make it virtually impossible for me to phone her often, let along daily. That's why I have tried to cut back the frequency of phone calls to her lately, much to her puzzlement. Still, I just don't know how I can keep her in the dark for any extended period of time if I end up in jail.

Sad, isn't it?

Postscript:

Writing about my mother in this month of June, I couldn't help but also think about the Tiananmen Mothers, a group of Chinese citizens who lost loved ones on or around June 4, 1989.

This group has been fighting for justice for their loved ones for an even longer time. Their stories came to my attention about one year ago - after I had become aware of my "role" as a candidate for the next generation of Chinese leadership. They resonated deeply with my own experience in seeking justice for Cecilia Zhang.

As I mentioned before, when I grew up, I was never interested in politics. Although I was at the university back in 1989, I did not take the free train ride to Beijing, nor did I even participate in the demonstrations in Hefei where my university is located. However, this doesn't mean I wasn't affected by the event of June 4 th, 1989. On the contrary, I believe that the tragedy is not only in my psyche, it is in the psyche of my whole generation.

Years later, when circumstances forced me into becoming a protester here in Canada, I naturally thought about my generation on the Tiananmen Square. Because protest, and especially protest along, had been the remotest idea in my mind, I put on a h eadband to do it.

After I realized my "role" as the next generation of Chinese leadership, I began consciously paying attention to the political aspects of that historical event, especially during last year's anniversary when there were an abundance of articles, documents and analyses coming out. Although there are many different angels to look at the event, there appears to be a consensus: The intentions of the student demonstrators, i.e., calling for political reform and eradication of corruption, were good.

I was particularly struck by the stories of Tiananmen Mothers, not only because they let me see the human side of this national tragedy, but also because their stories resonated deeply with my struggle in seeking justice for Cecilia Zhang. Actually, they made me realize that dealing with this historical event was probably the greatest moral issue facing the current and possibly future Chinese leaderships.

Since I was not actively seeking a career in politics, I refrained from directly commenting on it. However, my sentiment, as revealed in my blog The Meaning of Justice on June 19 of last year, was not that difficult for people to see. I just think it's past time to re-evaluate the event of June 4th and bring justice to the Tiananmen Mothers and other victims of this national tragedy.

Tuesday, May 15, 2007

A Very, Very Hard Fix?

The following are two excerpts from the April 26 column by Globe's Margaret Wente:

I know, I know. It's not about the math. It's about doing the right thing, and the example we want to set for the world, and the kind of planet we want our children to inherit. A journey round the world starts with a single step.…..


I'm merely pointing out that fixes are very, very hard. And politicians everywhere are in a fix, because people don't want to hear that.


I am sure you all know that she was cracking a lot of nuts in the above excerpts. But you may wonder what she meant by "very, very hard" fixes.

I knew what she meant the moment I read her column because just two days before that, I was set up to hold a small plastic bag (about 3cm x 3cm) of what I now believe marijuana.

Here is the details of the fix. You decide whether it was a "very, very hard" one.

Tuesday. April 24. It was drizzling. I had to go out because I needed to mail out an important letter.

I went out around 10:30AM. I took the usual road. Half way through, I saw a small plastic bag on the ground. Since the bag was sealed, I picked it up and looked at it for quite a few seconds as I was curious about its contents. -- I had never seen marijuana before in my life.

On my way back from the Post Office, I passed a police car near the same spot and immediately feared a set-up because:

  1. I walked on that road quite often, maybe once every two days on average lately.

  1. The spot where I picked up the bag was near a chained road-barrier. Normally people do not look down while walking. But when they pass a barrier, they have to look down. The bag was planted there so that I could not miss it.

  1. There was no police car when I was on my way to the Post Office. It was parked close to the spot only when I was on my way back. But apparently, the police wanted to draw my attention to their car because it was parked on the wrong side of the street with its headlights - maybe even high beams - on and a police officer was sitting inside.

Why the fix? My guess is that, having me in a picture holding a bag of marijuana would be a convenient excuse for the Bush administration to deny me entry into the United States because apparently, letting me learn from and work for Mr. Warren Buffett was the greatest fear they have. In the scenario, people will doubtlessly see me as who I truly am, a genuinely good guy with a sense of self-deprecating humor. -- Maybe when I called the Bush administration a "paper tiger", I was being too charitable. "Chicken little" should be more appropriate.

Although neither Mr. Warren Buffett nor I am a politician, we advocate doing the right things and actually do them ourselves. That made certain politicians very nervous. Why? Because doing the right things is also the hardest thing to do for these politicians, although they all know that it is the true measure of political leadership. The contrast between them and me would be tremendous.

What these politicians lack inside they try to cover it up from outside. This explains why so many politicians are image-conscious. For example, prime minister "Steve" Harper hired a make-up artist just to help him look good.

Because they pay so much attention to image themselves, naturally they would try to use the same trick on their opponents by damaging their images. This is exactly what the Harper government has been doing to me as I am seen as a threat to their political fortune even though I am not a politician. And they would routinely use law enforcement agencies for that purpose. Similar to how the FBI treated Martin Luther King, Jr., RCMP/CSIS is doing the same thing to me. And these so-called fixes are just part of the politically motivated and directed prosecutions the government is trying to pursue against me. Of course, their whole purpose is to drag me through the mud and in the mean time, with the help of the media, the facts and logic of my story would be lost.

Will they succeed? Only if "politicians everywhere are in the fix". But I have not given up hope in finding that one politician who is not afraid of doing the right thing, just like what I have been doing as a simple guy trying to right the wrong inflicted upon Cecilia Zhang.

Oh, BTW, if that ridiculous set-up three weeks ago was a "very, very hard" fix when there was no witness around, why should we even be bothered with the "very, very soft" fix of late when at least one citizen could put me away from that part of the town?

 

Monday, May 07, 2007

Wildly Oscillating Interpretations (4): “Steve” Harper

This series (Part 1 on Hu Jintao, Part 2 on the Bush administration and Part 3 on Tony Blair) would not be complete if "Steve" Harper is not included. Writing about Mr. Harper presents a unique difficulty for me, thought, because there were too many nuts-cracking by him over the years and for a long time, since he was on my side of the issue, I did not take notes.


Of course, his stand on my cause turned out to be unprincipled as reflected in his changing attitude before and after the last election. Indeed, not only is he a political opportunist, he is also a mean one. I will document how his government treated me even worse than the previous Liberal one if I find more time and energy.


For now, let me cast my memory to the more distant past and recall events that show Mr. Harper did know my file and indeed, he pretty much rode on my file to power.


The first time Mr. Harper drew my attention was during the final days of general election 2004. He defended his party's position that the then prime minister Paul Martin supported child pornography. The allegation was so outrageous that it had to draw my attention. In retrospect, I guess drawing my attention was exactly his purpose in making this campaign "gaffe". It was a desperate cry for help from me as his party was falling behind the Liberals in the polls. Indeed, partly because of this remark of his and partly because of Paul Martin's words and actions before and during the campaign, I sensed that my file was more significant – I did not realize the connection to Cecilia Zhang murder at the time - than I originally thought. That's why I concluded right after the election that the election had probably been stolen by the Martin Liberals.


Between the two elections, there were a lot of nuts-cracking by Mr. Harper and his caucus members. Especially during the final weeks of the spring 2005 session of the Parliament, the Conservatives sent out so many hints to me through the media that some journalists used the word telegraph in their veiled attacks on them. Unfortunately, I can only recall two incidents involving Mr. Harper himself:


  1. Days after I wrote my blog titled Untitled, Mr. Harper said during Question Period in the Parliament on February 8, 2005: "Mr. Speaker, I am tempted to call the Prime Minister the artless dodger." Before that, Mr. Martin was only known as a dodger, I guess.


  1. Day(s) after I posted my blog, This entry is written with dignity, Mr. Harper gave me advice by making comments publicly that when fighting an opponent as nasty or cruel as the Liberals, one should be careful not to lose oneself.


When it came to the last general election, I am able to remember more of Mr. Harper's speeches that demonstrated his knowledge of my file. As I said before, my file was at the center of last election campaign for all parties involved, not just for the Conservatives.


Right after the Parliament was dissolved and the election formally began, Mr. Harper made his election statement in front of the House of Commons. Using the phrase "people's verdict ", he made reference to my unfinished Chinese article, Liberal hypocrisy in immigration policies, published just one week before.


While ordinary Canadians have worked hard, paid their taxes, and played by the rules, the Liberals have been preoccupied by damage control, lurching from one scandal to another, recklessly promising to spend money and desperately trying to avoid the people's verdict.


This speech of Mr. Harper's set the tone for the Conservative campaign. Some pundits called it Tory's Time Horton approach. Since nobody is willing to talk to me, I don't know how much, if any, impact my letter of early fall 2005 had on the Conservatives in forming their strategy: "I think the Conservative has a great opportunity at hand. I would like to work with you for a better Canada, a Canada that is truly for the people, rather than for the elite."


My article, Liberal hypocrisy in immigration policies, which Mr. Harper made reference to in his speech, was written just a week before the election call because I knew that my cause of fighting for justice for Cecilia Zhang would be especially well received in the immigrant communities. I guess everyone else could see that, too. As it turned out, however, attracting immigrant votes, rather than acting on principle, was the real reason that Mr. Harper wanted to be on my side of the issue. On January 5, 2006, in a speech designed to woo immigrant votes in Toronto, Mr. Harper said: "I see a city whose fundamental character is beginning to change", in an apparent reference to U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's action-plan-for-Canadian-election article published on Washington Post in early December 2005. He was essentially signaling to me to ignore Rice's article and join in his campaign.


In another speech aimed at wooing immigrant votes and calling me to join the campaign fray, Mr. Harper emphasized that immigrants were honest people. I immediately understood that Mr. Harper was trying to defend me as I had exaggerated my credentials when I first came to Canada in 1991 as a graduate student at Simon Fraser University and it looked like Martin Liberals and media people would make this stain in my personal history an issue. I mentioned in my Canadian Election 2006 series Paul Martin's speech at the UN conference where he used the word "reticent" and implied that he knew my file at SFU. A strange editorial on Toronto Star in the middle of the campaign on December 31 also conveyed, on behalf of all mainstream media, similar warning to me. Indeed, being a "jobless immigrant without privacy", I had expected, ever since I decided that going public with my story was my only option, that this stain of mine would probably become an opening for personal attack someday, as reflected in the word "overstatement" in the very first open letters I wrote to Canadian government in December 2003.


Unlike other honest or dumb mistakes I made in my life, this one is indefensible. And I don't feel good writing about it. It was symptomatic of the time in China when the prospect of a life-changing opportunity seemed to justify a little short-cut. I hope Chinese people will draw a lesson from me and above all, try to slow down as, I believe, the future of China is bright. Likewise, by openly admitting this personal mistake, which had nothing to do with the racially motivated Cecilia Zhang murder, I hope people with knowledge and conscience will stand up and speak the truth, not just for Cecilia, but also for a better Canada.


For my part during the election, it was through watching Mr. Harper's campaign that I realized my "role" as a candidate for the 5th generation of Chinese leadership. At first, all those 5% blue signs accompanying Mr. Harper's announcements of his party's target of the GST cut caught my eye. Then, on the first day of the second half of the campaign, Mr. Harper revealed Conservative's 5 priorities in the biggest announcement of his party's campaign platform up to that point in time. In retrospect, it was apparent that Mr. Harper wanted very much for me to join in his campaign. And he certainly did not mind the perception that I was a candidate for the next generation of Chinese leadership.


Another connection between my writing and Conservative campaign strategy was their very effective "one policy announcement one day" approach in the early goings of the election. Back in September 2005, I had written another Chinese article, Media bias in covering Pacific Gateway, also with the coming election in mind. In the article, I praised Mr. Harper and the Conservatives for their policy ideas, using his speech earlier that month on expanding trade with China and India as an illustration.


I should point out that, at the time when I wrote my article, I just thought Mr. Harper's idea excellent. In retrospect, I think that, by emphasizing in his speech "in exploiting the growing demand of China, India and others for our natural resource sectors" and later, by proclaiming that he was not guided by "blind ideology" in his rebuttal to a National Post editorial on his speech, Mr. Harper was sending me an overtone. Obviously, I am extremely dismayed by Mr. Harper's reckless China-bashing lately. It is apparent that Mr. Harper thought this was a good way to dispose of my file because (1) it set up the stage for an eventual diplomatic showdown with China where my cause of fighting for justice for Cecilia Zhang would be lost, and (2) Canada should not be afraid of such a showdown because, as he justified publicly, China needed our natural resources. This is a risky and irresponsible game Mr. Harper is playing based on flawed reasoning.


Yes, as I've said before, I think Canada and other Asian countries complement each other very well in the natural resource sectors and I am all for increasing trades between Canada and these countries. But if Mr. Harper thought that the reason I was so persistent in having my cause be dealt with in Canada was that I wanted Canada to sell more resources to China, then he was flatly wrong. My cause is primarily a Canadian one and properly dealing with the issue will only contribute to building a better Canada. As shown by other issues such as the Air India investigation and Maher Arar affair, RCMP as an institution has a history of treating immigrants as second-class citizens. Mr. Harper and other politicians may not agree with me, but I believe Canadian people will be on my side once they know my story, as they usually are well ahead of their political and intellectual elites. Of course, if people could see, from the words and actions of me and others in my story, such as Cecilia Zhang family and Min Chen family, that Chinese people are a genuinely good people, and lose some of their prejudice – be it economic or ideological - in their future dealings with China, so much the better.
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Update 11 hours later:

The Bush administration knew that I had exaggerated my credentials, too. As I mentioned before, March 2006 was a low time for the Bush administration in the development of my story. Near the end of that month, they or people close to them even sent me a serious personal overtone, which I disclosed for a very brief period of time last August and did not anticipate to do so again except under extraordinary circumstances. Hearing no response from me, Mr. Bush went on the offense. On April 10, he gave a speech at Johns Hopkins University, one of the universities I applied with the same exaggerated credentials while in China and had been warned about over the years.

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Update 20070508:
Similarly, the Bush administration carefully read my Chinese article, Media bias in covering Pacific Gateway, too, and saw oil everywhere. And they appeared to have over-reacted after Mr. Harper won the election on January 23, 2006. First we saw President Bush proclaimed in his annual State of the Union address on January 31 that “America is addicted to oil” and needs to greatly reduce its dependence on importation from Middle East. Then the energy department started a media campaign about the importance of Canadian oil in helping to achieve that goal. For example, an energy department official was quoted in this February 4 CanWest report as telling the Reuters that “If (the United States) receives all (Alberta oil sands production), which we don't have in our forecast, it could reduce even more our dependence on the Middle East”. In other words, U.S. would like to have it all. Another Chinese report by government-funded Voice of America on February 5 was more direct in naming names and implied that U.S. goal was hindered by competition from China and India in Alberta oil sands. When Washington Post filed a report about Canada’s new government on February 6, it did not forget mentioning oil, as reflected in it byline: “Harper and Fellow Conservatives Inherit Strong Economy, Vast Oil Deposits”. The Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman himself went out to “justify” why Canadian oil should go to the U.S. in a March 2 speech, as reported by Globe and Mail: “It will cost them something to get the oil to China from Canada.”

Obviously.
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Update 20070509:

Having tried to document the ill treatments I endured under the Harper government, I changed my mind. For one thing, it’s too tedious to write my day to day (boring) life. For another, I believe public policy is more important than personal treatment. So, I will focus on Mr. Harper’s public policy vis-à-vis my file instead.

After Mr. Harper gained power in the last election, and especially after President Hu Jinatao’s visit to the White House in late April 2006 and Min Chen’s show trial in early May 2006, Mr. Harper took a decidedly hard line on my cause. It was apparent that his strategy was to make my life so difficult that I would have nowhere to turn but to eventually turn to the Chinese government because, after all, I am still a Chinese citizen. At the mean time, he deliberately provoked the Chinese government on a number of occasions to set the stage for an eventual diplomatic showdown where my cause of fighting for justice for Cecilia Zhang would be lost. As I said before, Cecilia Zhang murder and the subsequent cover-up is a Canadian matter. Just because he does not have the moral or political courage to do the right thing to right the wrongs for this innocent Canadian girl, Mr. Harper used his power – which he gained by riding on the very same file - to raise the stake higher, risking a fairly good Canada-China relationship. Is his strategy good for Canada? I seriously doubt so.

Here, I won’t get into details of Mr. Harper’s famous China-bashing for its supposedly “horrible” human rights condition because, frankly, Mr. Harper’s intention was not to help improve China’s HR condition, but to feed a domestic audience with feel-good rants. Besides, comparing HR conditions between Canada and China is like comparing apple and orange. I have yet to find any two countries where the one with a vastly higher standard of living has a poorer HR condition. (In other words, human rights can not exist in a vacuum.) What people can compare, though, is the improvement of HR condition over roughly the same period of time among different countries. And I am not sure if Canada would come out as a winner in that match.

Instead, I’ll give two examples where the public does not know the whole story.

On June 22, 2006, i.e., the last day of the spring session of the parliament, a Conservative motion was put forward to grant The Dalai Lama an honorary Canadian citizenship. As I noted before, the Harper government dealt two other issues that were connected to my file on that day, i.e., the Chinese head tax redress and the new Age of Consent bill. It was obvious that The Dalai Lama honorary citizenship issue was also related to my file. Indeed, The Dalai Lama himself knew it. In an interview with the Financial Times on June 1, 2006, The Dalai Lama said that China had a “psychological problem” in dealing with “superpower America”, an apparent bullying attack on my mental health, similar to those mounted by the RCMP, pundits, and former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, etc. (I respect The Dalai Lama as a religious leader, but I certainly don’t appreciate being bullied, especially when I am fighting, against all odds, for justice for an innocent girl.) Another example illustrating that the honorary citizenship emboldened him to attack China would be his comments on the newly-constructed Tibet railway. Also on June 1, The Dalai Lama said: “The rail link in itself is positive, a sign of development.” However, during his trip to Vancouver to accept the honorary citizenship just three months later, when asked to comment on the same subject by a reporter, he became extremely harsh of the railway, using such inflammable language as “cultural genocide”. (By the way, I don’t think it was a mere coincident, either, that The Dalai Lama was given an honorary degree from Simon Fraser University, where the seed of hatred was nurtured in Cecilia Zhang abduction and murder. I do remember, though, the then prime minister Paul Minister gave convoluted reasons for meeting The Dalai Lama in 2004.)

Another example was that, on July 18, 2006, during a visit to Vimy Ridge, France, Harper mused aloud: “These were sandbags, not concrete, and the enemy had guns, not cameras.” Those reporters who were not familiar with my story, such as Mike Blanchfield of CanWest, had no clue what Mr. Harper meant by that remark. But I immediately realized his meaning. In fact, I was so alarmed by it that I blogged about it right away. Yes, I agree with Mr. Harper that what President Hu Jintao did, i.e., went to Washington rather than raised my cause with his government, was selfish (and he might have considered Hu’s action an affront, too). But then for Mr. Harper to conclude that Chinese people are all selfish, and not united as one, is absurd. What’s worse, he was calling for arms because, apparently, what the previous Liberal government did to me with cameras was not enough for him.

I should note that Mr. Harper’s comments came just three days before the mysterious death of Dr. Jiang Guobing in Toronto. I should also note that on July 28, I was almost hit by a speeding SUV in the back alley of my residence, a rare chance for whoever was monitoring me as I had to stay in bed most of the time that week. – I felt at the time that somebody was trying to stop me from publicizing the case of Dr. Jiang as, obviously, I did a lot of research online about this case during that period of time.

As I said, “Steve” Harper is not just a political opportunist, he is a mean one.