Bomb hoax against Australian PM linked to tour of Chinese dance troupe
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was evacuated from his residence in Canberra for several hours Tuesday after a bomb threat was received by a U.S.-based performing arts group linked to China’s Falun Gong movement. File photo by Lukas Coch/EPA
Feb. 25 (UPI) — Australian police evacuated Prime Minister Anthony Albanese from his official residence in Canberra for several hours after a bomb hoax related to a classical Chinese dance and music troupe touring the country that is banned by Beijing.
The New York-based Shen Yun group was sent an email threat on Tuesday saying that explosives had been planted at The Lodge in the Australian capital and would be detonated unless the troupe pulled out of the tour, the BBC and Australia’s ABC News reported.
“Large quantities of nitroglycerine explosives have been placed around the Australian Prime Minister’s Lodge, located on Adelaide Avenue in the Deakin area of Canberra, Australia. If you insist on proceeding with the performance, then the Prime Minister’s Lodge will be blown into ruins and blood will flow like a river,” read the email.
The group is part of the Falun Gong spiritual movement, which is proscribed in China due to its opposition to the Chinese Communist Party, with the United States and other countries accusing Beijing of a brutal campaign of suppression to deprive its estimated 20 million adherents of their rights to freedom of religion and belief.
The government says the group is a dangerous cult.
Australian authorities confirmed only that they had dealt with an “alleged security incident” at Albanese’s home but that “nothing suspicious was located.”
Police said they evacuated Albanese to a safe location for several hours on Tuesday evening local time.
ABC News said there was no evidence the incident was in any way connected to the Chinese government, citing an anonymous Australian government source as saying a member of the local Chinese community opposed to Falun Gong could have been behind the incident.
The Queensland venue where Shen Yun’s tour was due to kick off on Wednesday evening was evacuated by police on Monday after an “unverified threat” linked to the group was made against the iconic Home of the Arts complex in Surfers Paradise, 45 miles southeast of Brisbane.
A search of the site by officers found no suspicious items, police said, but Experience Gold Coast said it had tightened security for the Shen Yun performances being staged at the venue through Sunday.
“We will continue to monitor the situation closely and adjust arrangements if required as the safety of our team and patrons is always our first priority,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
A similar bomb-hoax incident in February 2025 forced the evacuation of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C., on the day Shen Yun was due to open a 12-date tour, starting at the Kennedy Center.
A spokesperson for the Kennedy Center told The Washington Post that the threat was targeted at Shen Yun performances.
In 2024, Chinese residents of Los Angeles John Chen and Lin Feng were sentenced to 20 months and 16 months in prison for working for the Chinese government to get Shen Yun’s tax exempt status in the United States revoked by paying bribes to an undercover agent posing as an IRS staffer.
In a wiretap transcript submitted by the Justice Department, Chen is quoted as stating the bribes were to facilitate China’s aim of “toppl[ing]” Falun Gong, while in another Chen and Feng discuss orders from a Chinese government official, including deleting the instructions to avoid detection as well as procedures to notify the official if their bribery scheme failed.
A DOJ news release at the time said the Chinese Communist Party designates Falun Gong as one of the “Five Poisons,” or one of the top five threats to its rule, with Falun Gong adherents routinely subjected to “repressive and punitive measures”, including imprisonment.
However, Shen Yun has reputational issues around alleged abusive practices and behavior by the group.
In November 2024, a lawsuit was launched alleging forced labor and trafficking, while dozens of performers described being badly treated by the group in interviews given to the New York Times.
Shun Yen denies any wrongdoing, alleging the lawsuit and complaints were part of an ongoing, politically driven smear campaign by the Chinese government.
