Man in PRC-Flag Jacket Threatens to Have Falun Gong Practitioner Shot Outside Toronto Consulate

On the morning of September 22, 2026, a man wearing a jacket bearing a red People’s Republic of China (PRC) insignia tore down Falun Gong banners and display boards outside the Chinese Consulate in Toronto, shoved a 62-year-old practitioner who tried to stop him, and told her he would have her shot. He declared, in Mandarin, that the public sidewalk outside the consulate at 240 St. George Street was Chinese territory. The practitioner was left bleeding from the chin. The man left in a waiting vehicle before police arrived.

Toronto police confirmed receiving a disturbance call at the address at approximately 9:35 a.m. and said they are investigating. As of early October, no suspect had been publicly identified and no charges had been announced.

The confrontation carries the hallmarks of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) transnational repression: intimidation on foreign soil against peaceful citizens exposing the CCP’s human rights abuses, carried out with open contempt for local law. What distinguished this episode from earlier harassment at the site was its brazenness. The man did not conceal his face. He stayed for several minutes. He asked a bystander to film him.

Falun Gong practitioners have maintained a peaceful information display outside the Toronto consulate for roughly 27 years.

Death threats on sidewalk

Lina Li, 62, said she and another practitioner had just finished setting up their longtime information display at around 9:15 a.m. when a man crossed the street and began pulling the signs down. She tried to stop him. In the struggle her chin was cut, and she said she only realized she was bleeding when she touched her face afterward.

The footage, posted by the account @WhatisonToronto, appears to have been filmed outside the Chinese Consulate General at 240 St. George Street. It was published on X on Tuesday evening, September 22, with the Chinese-language audio translated into English subtitles.

Video of the encounter, posted to X the same day and reviewed by several news outlets, captures what followed. The man tears down banners while insisting the ground he is standing on belongs to China. He invokes the Anti-Secession Law, a statute Beijing reserves for what it labels separatism, and accuses the practitioners of splitting the country. He tells Li he will have her shot. He tells her he will slam her to death. At one point he calls to someone off-camera to help him film.

Li said she was not frightened at the time, but was shaken afterward. She has called on the Canadian government to treat the matter seriously rather than let it pass.

Another practitioner, Nora Geng, said a second man stood nearby recording the confrontation and that the aggressor kicked dirt toward her as she filmed. She said the man later left in a vehicle that appeared to be waiting for him. Two passersby intervened, one of them telling the man he was in Canada. Both offered to give statements to police.

Not a hit-and-run

Jeff Li, a Falun Gong community liaison in Toronto, said practitioners have encountered vandalism and harassment at the consulate site for years, but described this incident as the most public in nearly three decades.

The earlier episodes followed a consistent pattern, he said: the perpetrator covered his face, damaged a banner or shouted insults, and left within seconds. This time the man stayed, spoke openly, issued explicit death threats and wanted the whole thing recorded. Li said it was as though he were performing.

He pointed to three details he believes warrant investigation — the Chinese-flag jacket, the second man filming, and the vehicle waiting nearby — and said the episode showed contempt for Canadian law.

Maria Cheung, who heads a Falun Gong human rights organization, made a similar distinction. Practitioners have absorbed verbal abuse outside the consulate for more than twenty years, she said, but explicit death threats mark a different order of conduct and cannot be tolerated in Canada.

Response across Canada

The reaction in Canada was swift and came from well beyond the Falun Gong community.

September 24—Press conference, Toronto. The Toronto Falun Dafa Association held a press conference on the sidewalk where the attack occurred. Lina Li spoke, with a visible injury to her chin, alongside representatives of several Chinese-Canadian democracy and human rights organizations, and called for the attacker to be identified and prosecuted.

September 28—Rally at Global Affairs Canada, Ottawa. More than 100 practitioners gathered outside Global Affairs Canada, urging the federal government to condemn the attack, press Beijing diplomatically, and investigate whether foreign interference played a role. Grace Wollensak, national coordinator of the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, submitted a letter to Canadian officials setting out those requests. Wollensak appeared before a House of Commons human rights subcommittee in April on what the association describes as a coordinated overseas campaign against practitioners.

September 29 and October 1—Billboard truck, Toronto. A digital billboard truck playing footage of the attack and seeking the public’s help identifying the man appeared outside the consulate, returning on October 1. A petition promoted by Rebel News calls on the Prime Minister to see charges laid, expel any diplomat found to be involved, and close what it describes as CCP police stations in Canada. No connection between the man and the consulate has been established.

October 1—Joint rally, Toronto. On China’s National Day, protesters from the Hong Kong, Tibetan, Uyghur, Chinese democracy and Falun Gong communities gathered outside the consulate together, framing the September 22 attack as part of a pattern that none of their communities faces alone.

The consulate’s denial

After publication of the video, the Chinese Consulate General in Toronto told Rebel News that the man had no connection to the mission and that it strongly opposed what it called malicious implication or false accusation aimed at damaging the reputation of China and the consulate.

That denial has not been tested. The man has not been publicly identified, and no evidence in the public record establishes who he is or whether anyone directed him. Those are precisely the questions the Falun Gong community and the Chinese-Canadian organizations supporting it have asked Canadian investigators to answer.

Chinese authorities have consistently rejected accusations of religious persecution and foreign interference.

A recurring pattern

The Toronto case also came days before a separate incident in Washington, where a Falun Gong practitioner said she was assaulted during demonstrations surrounding Xi Jinping’s state visit to the United States.

The Falun Dafa Information Center has documented physical assaults on practitioners at information sites in London, New York, Jeju Island and other cities, alongside harassment, surveillance and pressure campaigns directed at practitioners living abroad.

In announcing sanctions against Chinese officials in 2024, Global Affairs Canada said Chinese authorities had used arbitrary detention, forced labour and torture against practitioners since the suppression began.

Call to action

The Falun Dafa Information Center calls on:

• Toronto police to identify the man without further delay and lay charges where the evidence supports them. A threat to have someone shot, delivered on camera on a public sidewalk, should not go unanswered two weeks on.

• The RCMP and CSIS to examine whether the Countering Foreign Interference Act applies, and to determine whether this was an isolated act or one connected to a broader campaign of intimidation.

• Global Affairs Canada to condemn the attack publicly and raise it directly with Beijing, and to make clear that Canadian streets are not an extension of Chinese jurisdiction.

• Members of the public and the media to report on the incident and to stand with the practitioners who were threatened for telling the truth.