NEW YORK—A peaceful rally unexpectedly turned violent on Saturday in Flushing. The rally was to celebrate the milestone of 36 million people withdrawing from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), but a large and angry crowd made the celebration in this predominantly Chinese section of Queens tense.
On Monday a "Quit the CCP" booth set up on the street to accept further resignations—a daily event there that is normally is peaceful—also drew a similar crowd, and similar reactions of throwing objects, spitting, cursing, and physical beatings.
During Saturday's event, approximately 40 people rallied in front of the Flushing library with signs in English and Chinese that urged people to quit the CCP. Many signs also advertised the book Nine Commentaries on the Comunist Party published by The Epoch Times in 2004. The book gives a graphic, detailed history of the CCP's crimes and origin.
Event participants took turns speaking to the relatively small gathering on a microphone with their backs to the library and facing Main Street. Within less than one hour, a large crowd of about 200 to 300 people gathered on the opposite side of Main Street.
On Monday, the Quit CCP booth in Flushing continued as usual after Saturday's and Sunday's events where a group of aggressive Chinese people threatened and intimidated the organizers of the Quit CCP rally.
Ms. Rong Yi is Vice President of the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP, and a resident of New York. According to Ms. Yi, the local Chinese community in Flushing is aware of the connection between the Service Center and the spiritual practice Falun Gong after two years in Flushing.
But Yi says the reason for Falun Gong to be taking part in calling for people to quit the CCP comes with good reason. "The Chinese Communist Party has been persecuting Falun Gong since 1999," says Yi. "Falun Gong practitioners have been taking the lead to call for Chinese people to get rid of the communist organizations by setting up booths to help Chinese to quit from communist organizations."
Yi says that events on Saturday, Sunday and Monday were met with well-orchestrated, well-organized protests.
"The people [gathered against the Global Service Center] were shouting, cursing Falun Gong, shouting 'traitors!', some of them also had boards that said "Without the Chinese Communist Party, No China". In a very short time, a few hundred people were organized," said Yi.
Nick Guy Rostron from England is a Falun Gong practitioner visiting New York and was at the Quit CCP booth in Flushing on Monday. According to Rostron, his intention was to help explain the true situation in China.
"[We went] to talk to Chinese about what's actually happening in China and answer any questions they've got," recounted Ronstron. "Chinese can ask Westerners about how China is viewed from a Western point of view."
According to Ronstron, about an hour after he and others started handing out newspapers and information about quitting the CCP, things quickly changed.
"A crowd started to gather suddenly," said Ronstron. "I went there to hand out information as well. There were probably around 50 people at first. Then within 10-20 minutes, there were around 200 people."
According to Ronstron the crowd was "shouting and being quite angry", but a few stood out.
"There seemed to be about 10-20 people who were the main instigators and everyone else was following along with their lead," said Rontstron. "A lady threw eggs and when the police confiscated her bag, her bag had around four boxes with around 12 eggs in each box.
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