Practitioners of the meditation practice Falun Gong took part in the annual parade with a full marching band, dragon dancers, and traditional Chinese costumes. For them, and for Chinese people living abroad, this was a display of the limits of the Chinese regime’s power in exporting its suppression of Falun Gong onto U.S. soil.
The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has a long history of trying to block the public voice of Falun Gong practitioners. “Each year the consulate officials will attend hundreds of functions held by the local Chinese community, [and] each time the consulate shall demand the host guarantee that no Falun Gong practitioners will be present,” said Chen Yonglin, former consul for political affairs of the Chinese consulate general of Sydney, during a testimony before Congress on July 21, 2005.
“By joining this parade, the community can see what Falun Gong really is, and they can see so many people of different ages, so many young people, and so many Westerners [practicing the discipline],” said Rong Yi, one of the parade participants.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a peaceful meditation practice based on the virtues of being honest, kind, and tolerant. The practice, with foundations in Buddhist and Daoist principles, has been brutally persecuted by the CCP since 1999, after a state survey estimated that there were between 70 and 100 million Chinese people partaking in the practice.
“America is a free country that is not a one-party state like China,” Yi said. “Exporting its [CCP’s] persecution will definitely fail, because information here is free and people can enjoy freedom of speech and freedom of belief.”
When news hit that Falun Gong was denied participation in the Feb. 6 Manhattan Lunar New Year parade due to pressure from the CCP, New York state Sen. Tony Avella was among the first to write to the parade organizer.
Although Falun Gong was able to join the Flushing parade, the CCP’s presence was still evident. About half-way through, a man wearing a backpack and a hooded sweatshirt jumped the parade barricade and charged the Falun Gong practitioners. He threw himself at one of the banners, breaking the banner pole in two, before police rushed in and arrested him in the middle of the road at the crossing of Sanford Avenue and Main Street.
Not far from where the disruption took place, a pro-CCP organization flew a Chinese flag and distributed propaganda on the sidewalk. Many of the organizers of the group had been arrested in 2008 for attacking Falun Gong practitioners on the streets of Flushing.
The Falun Gong parade participants, however, appeared to take the intrusion lightly. “It’s just too bad,” said Liam O’Neill, a 33-year-old Chinese-language teacher who was holding the banner when the man broke it. “I think it’s people who have these misconstrued ideas about what Falun Dafa is that probably influenced this gentleman today.”
