A false bomb threat and a false threat of a mass shooting have been sent to the headquarters of Shen Yun Performing Arts, an art group founded by Chinese dissidents that has long faced harassment by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
The messages were received just days after similar false bomb threats were sent to two theaters where Shen Yun was performing over the weekend in California and Canada, prompting evacuations and bomb sweeps by police. No explosives were found.
The company received a series of emails on March 26 that claimed explosives were placed at its headquarters in upstate New York and that individuals will sneak onto the property, “shoot everyone on sight,” and “throw grenades,” the emails, obtained by The Epoch Times, read. No explosives were found.
The Shen Yun headquarters is located at a site called Dragon Springs which also hosts two art schools and Tang Dynasty-style temples. The bomb threat asked for a ransom.
“Multiple C4 plastic bombs have been placed in various locations in the Dragon Springs Temple at the Shawangunk Ridge, upstate New York. If you don’t want to see the Dragon Springs Temple to be turned into ruins, then transfer US$58 million before 3 pm tomorrow to my PayPal account … If the money hasn’t arrived by 3 o’clock, we will detonate the bombs,” said the email, written in Mandarin.
The mass shooting threat, sent from a separate email address, didn’t ask for money.
“We will sneak into the Dragon Springs Temple in the Shawangunk Ridge, upstate New York, in the near future, shooting at whomever we see with guns and throwing grenades at crowds!,” the email, also in Mandarin, said.
Yet another email sent on the same day went into a chaotic, expletive-laced rant with the sender seemingly irked by the fact that Dragon Springs and Shen Yun reported the threats to the police and the media.
“Me, your Big Boss, has made headlines hundreds of times! The FBI isn’t worth worrying about at all,” it said, arguing that “Keeping sending [such emails] will wear the police out sooner or later, and they will just think it’s the boy who cried wolf.”
“Then one day [I] will really place bomb[s] in the theater. If it kills one of you, there will be one less traitor,” it said.
The first bomb threat targeting Dragon Springs was sent on March 14.
The messages, all obtained by The Epoch Times, were sent from different email addresses, though there were similarities between some of the addresses.
“Shen Yun shows the world just how profound, inspiring, and magnificent authentic Chinese culture was before the CCP seized power, while also offering a captivating vision for how wonderful China could be once again without the CCP,” said Ying Chen, a vice president with Shen Yun Performing Arts.
“This is the last thing the CCP wants demonstrated so clearly on stages around the world, and so for more than 15 years, they have stopped at nothing to thwart Shen Yun.
The FBI has been notified and is investigating the threats, a Shen Yun representative said. The Epoch Times reached out to the FBI for comment but hasn’t received a response.
Armed Man
On Sept. 7, 2023, the FBI issued an officer safety alert stating that a man “has made threats to the Dragon Springs campus,” was seen in the area and was “potentially armed and dangerous.”
The man, of Chinese descent, “claimed he wanted to be on a ‘suicide squad’,” the FBI alert read. It also noted the man had videos of “demonstrating loading his guns.”
As a result of the potential threat to the on-site schools, all entrances were guarded by law enforcement.
“At one point, this man was known to be in the area of our campus. … We had state police patrolling our entrances, and everyone was on high alert,” George Xu, vice president of Dragon Springs, told The Epoch Times.
Police subsequently searched the man’s home and found a handgun, an AR-15 rifle, more than 600 rounds of ammunition, and 14 magazines for the weapons, about half of which were loaded, a police report obtained by The Epoch Times said.
The man has been charged with illegal gun possession for failing to obtain a concealed-carry permit after moving to another state as well as with illegal possession of magazines with greater than 10-round capacity—the limit in his current state of residence.
Other Incidents
In a separate incident, Shen Yun tour buses were vandalized last week in Costa Mesa, California, in a manner that could have caused a serious accident.
Tires on two buses were slashed halfway through the rubber, based on images provided by Shen Yun as well as a description of the damage in a Costa Mesa Police Department report obtained by The Epoch Times. This kind of damage doesn’t cause the tire to deflate but rather to burst while driving at speed.
Due to previous similar incidents in the United States and Canada, in which Shen Yun bus tires were cut in the same way, the company has been forced to employ security personnel to watch its buses day and night. In Costa Mesa, however, the buses were taken to a local garage for maintenance, and the cuts were noticed after they were picked up.
The police are investigating the incident.
In addition, two weeks ago, members of one of the Shen Yun groups were harassed at O’Hare International Airport in Chicago by a customs official speaking Mandarin with a mainland accent. The incident has spurred several Congress members to call for an investigation.
CCP Campaign
Shen Yun has been a major cultural force, growing to eight touring ensembles that perform for about a million people every year. Its portrayal of authentic Chinese culture, under the tagline of “China before communism,” is perceived by the CCP as a threat to its dominance in the cultural field.
“They [the CCP] want to say Chinese culture is socialist,” according to Trevor Loudon, an expert on communist regimes and their overseas influence operations.
Shen Yun representatives suspect recent threats and attacks are tied to the long-running CCP campaign against Shen Yun.
There have been more than a hundred cases in which CCP officials have pressured theaters and government officials to cancel Shen Yun shows, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a non-profit dedicated to monitoring the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong. A handful of such attempts have been successful in countries where the CCP holds greater sway, such as in South Korea, The Epoch Times reported.
Some Shen Yun artists say their relatives in China have been questioned by police, or even imprisoned, in an effort to intimidate them.
“First, they threatened governments to not allow Shen Yun. When that didn’t really work, they started threatening theaters. When that didn’t really work, they started slashing our bus tires,” said Ying Chen, a vice president of Shen Yun Performing Arts.
“When that didn’t stop us, they started smear campaigns online and sent crazy emails to theater managers. Now, they have stooped even lower, sending ‘bomb threat’ emails.”
Many of the artists practice Falun Gong, an ancient Chinese spiritual discipline that includes slow-moving exercises and tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.
In 1999, then-leader of the CCP, Jiang Zemin, launched a campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong after the regime estimated the practice had 70-100 million followers, outpacing CCP membership.
Human rights groups have documented mass arrests, detention, torture, and murder of Falun Gong followers in China. An independent China Tribunal in the UK concluded in 2019 that the CCP also used Falun Gong detainees as a source of organs to fuel its massive transplant industry.
Some Shen Yun dance pieces artistically depict scenes from the persecution.
From The Epoch Times