Flushing, New York—Steve Lancione, a real estate agent and small business owner, traveled from his home in Boston to Chinatown in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens this past weekend to host a rally in support of more than 37 million people who have publicly resigned from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations.
Despite the violent attacks on Falun Gong practitioners in the area over the past two weeks, the rally on Saturday was successfully held and approximately 1000 people attended to support those who have quit the CCP. The recent attacks have been organized and encouraged by Keyu Peng, the consul general of the Chinese Consulate in New York, who openly admitted his involvement in a phone interview on May 21.
Many of the attacks are committed on Falun Gong practitioners when they are alone, away from others. Mr. Lancione experienced such an attack after the rally on Saturday. He was standing near an Epoch Times newspaper box when he saw an older gentleman and a younger girl stealing the newspapers and tearing them up.
When Lancione confronted them on their actions, "at first they were very flustered, like a deer in a headlight," said Lancione. Then the man began screaming that Lancione had hit his daughter.
This is a typical tactic that the CCP supporters have been employing to create disturbance and confusion: they shout false and inflammatory accusations to incite a crowd to attack Falun Gong practitioners.
As the man kept screaming, Lancione followed him until they could be near a police officer, but then a crowd of about 50 angry Chinese people surrounded Lancione and began screaming at him and threatening him with violence. "The crowd became violent when the police instructed them to calm down," said Lancione. "I was hit by a few different people and then they arrested the man who had torn up the newspapers."
"After that happened the female that was with him raised her hand to the police officer and started to strike him and she was then arrested as well."
When asked why he thinks these violent attacks are being carried out on Falun Gong practitioners, Lancione shared his thoughts. "Personally I think that the Chinese Communist Party has taken the chance to politicize the earthquake in China and turned the internal crises toward Falun Gong practitioners, and they fabricated lies and organized spies from the Chinese Consulate to rally nationalistic Chinese and carry out propaganda campaigns in Flushing to go against Falun Gong."
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