If you’ve driven past the Chinese Consulate on Granville Street in the past five years you’ve probably seen someone sat in a little wood hut on the sidewalk outside the embassy. That person is a supporter of Falun Gong and over the past five years they’ve been outside the Consulate protesting the fact that China has outlawed the religion that was founded in 1992.

Mayor Sam Sullivan has been trying to get the protest taken down for awhile, and now it’s going to court since the protesters are apparently breaking civic by-laws. The CBC quotes Deputy city engineer Peter Judd as saying [cbc]:

“Imagine if the signs and structures were on your block, across from your house or in front of your house or your neighbour’s house. They’re not attractive and in the long term, people don’t want them there.

“I think that people are prepared to tolerate a protest for some reasonable time period, but five years is beyond reasonable.”

The case is heading for the provincial Supreme Court which will be fun.

I tried to find a picture on Flickr to illustrate the story, but apparently there was only one picture of this five year protest and it was non-bloggable.