After 2,730 days, a longtime symbol of peaceful protest in B.C. is now gone.
The structure that has housed Falun Gong protestors around the clock since 2001 in front of Vancouver's Chinese Consulate was removed overnight by the protesters themselves.
Last month, the B.C. Supreme Court ruled the protest site on Granville St. violated city bylaws and ordered them to remove their billboards and protest hut.
Falun Gong practitioners argued the bylaw stifled their freedom of expression rights.
But Court Justice Sunni Stromberg-Stein ruled there were no exceptional circumstances and that erecting permanent structures goes against the fundamental purpose of the street.
Falun Gong followers adhere to a spiritual discipline that involves meditation. Adherents claim they have been persecuted by the Chinese government. Group spokesperson Sophia Bronwen says they are disappointed.
"This is the number one human rights abuse in China and the one that is the most hidden and we wanted to speak out against our friends and family being persecuted in China," she said.
Bronwen fears Chinese state-run media will twist the news of the removal to imply that Canada is against the Falun Gong movement.
"Turn it around so it looks like Vancouver is on board, and more people will be persecuted in China because of it."
Bronwen says the group will continue their appeal on the street despite the removal of the permanent structure.
Members lost a last-ditch appeal Monday to keep up the protest site. B.C. Court of Appeal Justice Lance Fitch dismissed the stay application, stating the protesters may suffer some harm to their cause by the order but not enough to uphold a stay.
