February 5, 2006 Sunday

BY Sean Moore, Toronto Sun

A Toronto television station's decision to continue airing The Same Song Show drew protests yesterday from the Falun Dafa Association, which claims the show is linked to torture and brainwashing in China.

OMNI 2 last night re-ran two hours of footage from a four-hour Chinese New Year celebration concert held Jan. 15 for a Rogers Centre crowd of 21,000.

It was the fourth time the concert was held here.

"The song appears very innocent but it's a tool to suppress," Minar Lo, a Falun Dafa spokesman, said as about 50 protesters gathered outside OMNI 2's Lakeshore Blvd. W. studio.

Some famous lines -- translated -- are: "The same feelings give us all the same hopes. The same joy gives us the same song."

Sun Chang Zhen said no joy comes to her when she hears the song and she is upset OMNI 2 airs the produced by China Central Television.

Zhen, 58, said as a Falun Dafa practitioner in China, she was taken to various detention centres and labour camps, where she was forced to stare at the wall in a squatting position, beaten and deprived of sleep.

She said this continued until she renounced her Falun Dafa faith more than a year later. When she did, her tormentors became cheery and joined hands in a circle to sing the "same song," which was done every time one of the 840 detainees renounced their faith, she said.

"The 'same song' was a big attack on me," Zhen said.

"Whenever the song is mentioned I think I'm back at the camp. I thought since I was in Canada I was safe, but I'm not. I don't want to remember it."

OMNI officials couldn't be reached for comment.