The streets of New York have been transformed into scenes some say are reminiscent of the Cultural Revolution, as gangster tactics, used in China against the regime's critics, surface in communities abroad.
Clashes continue to erupt in New York's predominantly Chinese area of Flushing between pro-communist mobs and members of the "Quit CCP Service Centre" – incidents that eye witnesses described as "frightening" and "spooky".
"I was frightened that they were going to hurt you," said one American woman to an Epoch Times photographer who was besieged by the angry mob, yelling "we will kill you, we will kill you".
Verbal and physical abuse from the mob has been largely aimed at Falun Gong practitioners, who have supported the Quit CCP movement – a global network that encourages Chinese to withdraw from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The movement celebrated a milestone of 35 million withdrawals on May 17 – the day when the first attacks in Flushing surfaced.
Reports described violent attacks on practitioners of Falun Gong – a spiritual practice that has been persecuted in communist China for almost nine years.
In one incident a woman's camera was smashed against concrete, while in others practitioners were spat at or physically assaulted. To date six arrests have been made, according to the New York police, none of which involved Falun Gong.
Although such mob-style attacks are common in China, the recent attacks have been denounced for bringing communist tactics to Western democracies.
"It was such a despicable act. I felt I was no longer in the United States. I felt as though I was in China again in the thick of the Cultural Revolution or at Tiananmen Square in the middle of the June 4 Student Massacre," recalled Ms Yi Rong, vice-chairman of the Quit the CCP Service Centre.
Part of a larger campaign
The attacks are believed to be an extension of a wider campaign of intimidation. According to Human Rights Watch, attacks within China are becoming ever more frequent, targeting lawyers, dissidents and even foreign journalists.
In December 2006, 53 Chinese lawyers and law experts took the unprecedented course writing an open letter to Chinese authorities requesting protection for lawyers, Human Rights Watch reported.
"For the past few years, the working environment of the legal profession has become more dangerous day by day," the letter said, quoting incidents where lawyers have been followed, harassed and violently assaulted.
"These threats are not coming solely from the opposite party – they increasingly come from forces of the Public Security Bureau, the Procuracy and the courts themselves," the letter said.
The harassments occurring in Flushing highlight a nasty progression from state-sanctioned violence against critics of the Chinese regime within China to critics abroad.
International communities have been shocked at the state-orchestrated violence against pro-Tibet and human rights activists during the Olympic Torch's tour of the globe.
The Flushing incident is a bolder step of intimidation on foreign soil.
"America is a free land, not a lawless regime. Those Chinese people involved in the incident, they try to bring this kind of Chinese communist fighting to America and make a lawless nation," said one Chinese woman, who asked to remain anonymous for fear of harm to her family back in China.
Consulate-General encouraged attacks
A conversation between the Chinese Consulate-General in New York and an individual who is privately sympathetic to the Quit the CCP cause adds further weight to the theory that the event was part of a deliberate campaign by Chinese authorities to intimidate rights activists in America.
Chinese Consulate-General Peng Kenyu is reported to have admitted "encouraging" the violent attacks on members of the Quit the CCP Centre and personally shaking hands and thanking the harassers after the event.
"I went there the day before yesterday, and also three days ago, because we have to be very careful with this kind of thing! Otherwise, people will say the Chinese Consulate is behind it, agitating people…But we encouraged them secretly! Because I showed up at the scene, everyone was very excited," Mr Peng told the individual.
Ms Yi confirmed that staff of the consulate in New York were also among the agitators.
"I was informed by kind-hearted local residents that this or that man in the mob works for the Chinese Consulate," she told The Epoch Times. "I was told about their hairdo and their clothes to identify them," she said.
The angry crowd that instigated the attack claimed they come spontaneously, but they appeared to work in shifts. They told each other that they were from Boston, Philadelphia and Washington, DC, witnesses said. A man confessed that he came on false pretences. "We were instructed to come here for the pro-Tibet independence rally," he told The Epoch Times.
Infected by the crowd, several elderly women began to condemn Falun Gong practitioners angrily. When asked the cause of their rage, they answered: "Falun Gong practitioners are here to obstruct people from donating money to the Sichuan earthquake victims."
When they were asked how they knew that, they replied: "They told us," pointing at the angry mob.
Chinese state media distort events
Efforts to demean Falun Gong practitioners were further evidenced in the presence of Chinese state-run media, which heavily reported the harassment with inflammatory comments and distorted accounts.
It was in fact the first time state media had been seen reporting Quit the CCP activities in Flushing, witnesses said.
According to press freedom agency Reporters sans frontières (Reporters Without Borders), the three main media outfits in China – Xinhua, the People's Daily and national television broadcaster China Central Television, or CCTV – are fully controlled by the Chinese Communist Party. They describe Xinhua as "the largest propaganda machine in the world".
All three media outfits have since broadcast the fracas within China, describing Falun Gong practitioners variously as against Chinese people, the people of Sichuan and earthquake relief.
On Tuesday May 20, Xinhua reported the riot in Flushing by claiming that Falun Gong practitioners had created anger in the local Chinese community when they disrupted an earthquake relief donation activity in Flushing.
However, on the Main Street in Flushing on Tuesday, no earthquake relief activity or anything that could confirm the reports by China's official media were visible. Instead, at 10am there was an unprovoked attack on Falun Gong.
One Chinese media reporter in Flushing, when questioned by The Epoch Times journalist why Falun Gong was being attacked, said that "Falun Gong is against China" and pointed at a banner that she claimed to read "heaven will eliminate China" in Chinese. Instead the banner made reference to the Chinese Communist Party.
Ms Yi said the sudden presence of Chinese media at the scene and the subsequent harassment was typical of CCP co-ordination.
She believes the attack was staged to draw attention away from domestic issues in China, but felt it was unusual for it to be staged in the US.
"This is the same strategy that the Chinese Communist Party has been using consistently," she explained, "but this may be the first time it has used the strategy in the United States. This is a new lesson for the Americans," she said.
Feeds