Violent threats have escalated in recent weeks as Shen Yun tours world stages with its ‘China before communism’ show, making it a top target of Beijing
A bomb threat and a 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 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.
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.”
By Petr Svab
