NEW YORK—With a regal air and captivating story, 3,000 people marched down Broadway on Easter Sunday, calling for an end to the persecution of the spiritual practice Falun Gong and heralding a "new China" without communism. The number of people in China quitting the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has reached over 20 million.
"I think the CCP is going to crash very soon," said Scott Chinn, head of the parade's dragon dance team. Chinese people in China and around the world have been posting their formal resignations from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations on a Web site run by The Epoch Times and on walls and poles throughout China.
The parade included a variety of sections, including a grand 160-person marching band, dancing heavenly beauties, a Chinese waist-drum group, dragon dance and lion dance performances, and a seemingly endless number of banners and pictures calling for an end to persecution in China. Participants included thousands of Falun Gong adherents visiting New York City for a yearly conference that took place Saturday, as well as democracy advocates and Taiwanese people who also want to see a free China.
Parade participant Ms. Felice Boewe from Kansas held a long banner with a group that read in large English and Chinese writing, "The Red Wall is Falling – 20 Million Chinese Quit the CCP."
Boewe, who was born in China, said, "We want people to understand the true nature of the CCP. Once they understand what the party is really like they will not support it and things will change. This is the most peaceful way to do this."
The Chinese Communist regime—which historians blame with 80 million unnatural deaths of its own people in its 50 years of rule—banned Falun Gong from China in 1999 and has since then carried out a vast propaganda campaign and deadly persecution to eradicate the peaceful practice that totes truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance as its three main principles. Recent reports done by independent human rights activists in Canada have revealed that state-owned hospitals in China have harvested organs from living Falun Gong adherents.
"I'm going to cry... it's very sad," said one woman watching the parade.
Ms. Wang, a 67-year-old woman passing out flyers during the parade, said she had been detained by authorities in China twice just for practicing Falun Gong. "You cannot imagine how brutal they are. They look at Falun Gong people as less than animals," she said through a translator.
Ms. Wang, who preferred not to give her first name, said that in police captivity in China she was inundated with anti-Falun Gong propaganda and told to renounce the practice. She was stripped naked and made to stand for days on end without sleep as punishment for not giving up Falun Gong. As it turns out, Ms. Wang said she was treated relatively better than the other old ladies she used to do Falun Gong meditation with. "Three of them were beaten almost to death. Four other are still in jail or detention."
Parade participants said that mainstream media in the West haven't been covering the persecution of Falun Gong enough or publicizing the 20 million resignations at all.
"This is a historic event. It's a celebration we equate it to the wall falling in Germany," said Damon Noto, a physician from New Jersey and Falun Gong adherent who helped organize the parade.
China's rapid economic growth has also played a role said Noto. Mainstream media "don't want to make China look bad so that they can cover the 2008 Olympics [scheduled for Beijing]."
"I think everybody should care. If you have a rogue regime controlling the world's economy, it's not a good thing," said Chinn.
One local New Yorker watching the parade said, "I think the word needs to get out, definitely."
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