New York Chinatown Parade Discriminates Against Community

DIVINE LAND MARCHING BAND: Falun Dafa practitioners parade through Washington DC in July 2009. Edward Dai/The Epoch Times

NEW YORK—Flying in the face of American values, organizers of the Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade & Festival, in Manhattan, are now excluding past parade participants for their religious beliefs.

The Chinese meditation group Falun Gong (also known as Falun Dafa) was barred from joining this year’s parade with claims from the organizer of “potential security issues and disruption.”

When the local Falun Dafa Association attempted to register, the organizer, Steven Tin, replied with an e-mail stating “I’m sorry to inform, we'll not able to accommodate.”

His reason was “due to the unsettled conflict your organization has with numerous community groups and individuals that can create potential security issues and disruption.”

Spokesperson for the New York City Falun Dafa Association Levi Browde said Tin may be “alluding to the fact that maybe some of those groups that participate in this parade are those tied directly to the consulate.”

Browde added, “We’re a very peaceful member and a peaceful part of that community. There is no conflict, other than groups that are influenced by the Chinese consulate trying to bring the repression of the Chinese communist regime into this country.”

The “security issues” Tin referred to likely relate to the 2008 attacks against Falun Dafa practitioners in Flushing, Queens. It was later discovered, via an investigative phone call, that New York Chinese Consul General Peng Keyu was meeting with and encouraging those involved in the attacks.

Further investigation revealed that New York City’s current comptroller, John Liu, was also meeting with and encouraging individuals behind the attacks; and that Chinese community associations with ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) were involved.

One of the main groups was the Fukien American Association, which has also organized events in cooperation with the Better Chinatown Society—including their 2009, 2008, and 2007 New Year’s Day Firecracker Ceremony & Cultural Festival.

According to Ko-lin Chin, a leading expert on Chinese gangs, the Fukien American Association has close ties to the CCP. “Once that organization, the Fukien American Association, became one of the leading [China]-supported organizations, they became the host of almost all these Chinese officials who are visiting New York,” Chin said in an earlier interview with The Epoch Times.

Peng Keyu also has a history of targeting Falun Dafa. He was the Chinese Consulate General in San Francisco before he took up the same position in New York.

In 2004, the San Francisco Chinese Consulate tried to stop a showing of a movie depicting the torture and abuse of Falun Dafa practitioners in China by pressuring the Manteca Convention & Visitors Bureau (CVB). However, the CVB refused to give in and the film played as scheduled.

In January 2006, a resolution condemning the persecution of Falun Gong in China was issued by the San Francisco City Development and Community Service Committee. Peng Keyu then issued a public statement threatening that supporting Falun Dafa could “harm the Sino-U.S. relationship” and warned them “not to make decisions which may interfere with the friendly exchange between the city of San Francisco and China.” Peng’s statement was published in Chinese media including the “World Journal” and “Sing Tao Daily.”

Overseas Manipulation

Although just a community parade through Chinatown on Feb. 6, the issue ties into a long-running trend of overseas manipulation by the CCP.

“One of our concerns, in a nutshell, is the impact on the community and what the Chinese Consulate has done in that regard,” said Browde.

Much of the CCP’s control of overseas Chinese communities was revealed by Chen Yonglin, the former consul for political affairs of the Chinese consulate general of Sydney, who defected from the CCP.

He testified before Congress on July 21, 2005, calling the persecution Falun Gong by the Chinese Communist Party a “systematic campaign.”

Next: Must be at least one Chinese official in charge of the Falun Gong affairs


“In each Chinese mission overseas, there must be at least one official in charge of the Falun Gong affairs, and the head and the deputy head of the mission will be responsible for the Falun Gong affairs,” said Chen.

Falun Gong is a traditional Chinese meditation practice that emphasizes being honest, kind, and tolerant. The practice was banned in China by the CCP in 1999 shortly after a survey done by public security officers found between 70 million and 100 million people were practicing it. According to the RAND Corporation, the CCP, itself, has just 65 million members.

Chen Yonglin said that in Australia the Chinese Consulate “successfully defeated the attempt of the Falun Gong to participate in the Chinese Spring Festival (Chinese New Year) parade,” and that the CCP launches such campaigns by “mobilizing the force of the Chinese community.”

“Each year the consulate officials will attend hundreds of functions held by the local Chinese community, each time the consulate shall demand the host guarantee that no Falun Gong practitioners will be present,” said Chen.

In New York, the annual Chinatown Lunar New Year Parade and Festival is held by the Better Chinatown Society. An announcement was published in several Chinese newspapers, including the World Journal, on Nov. 21, 2010, that the parade organizer called on every organization in the Chinese community to participate, and that all were welcome to join.

Melbourne Case

Despite the persecution against Falun Dafa in China, however, overseas Falun Dafa practitioners regularly join local parades with a marching band, Chinese lion dancers, and traditional waist drums. They often win awards for their colorful costumes and floats.

Browde said Falun Dafa being blocked from the New York parade is “a real shame because Falun Gong is the very essence of the heartland of traditional China, and that is what this parade celebrates.”

“It’s all the traditional values—the spiritual values, the family values—all of that is contained in Falun Gong,” he said.

This wouldn’t be the first time Falun Dafa was banned from a parade, due to discrimination.

One of the best-known cases was in Melbourne, Australia. In 2003, the Falun Dafa Association of Victoria was barred from the Moomba parade—the largest annual parade in Melbourne—by the Melbourne City Council. They were also barred from the local Chinese New Year Festival by the Federation of Chinese Associations (FCA).

“It was patently wrong for our legally registered association to be excluded from our own festival and parade in our own city due to the pressure of a foreign power,” said Dr. Michael Pearson-Smith, secretary of the Falun Dafa Association of Victoria, via e-mail.

The Falun Dafa Association took legal action. E-mails from the FCA president presented in court showed a “record of a motion actually supporting the persecution of Falun Gong,” which was seconded by the FCA president. The e-mails gave enough evidence that the judge ruled political discrimination was taking place.

The Melbourne City Council and the FCA were found guilty of discrimination. They were ordered to allow Falun Dafa to participate in all future parades, and the city council was ordered to pay all legal costs and publish a written apology.

The council attempted to use one of the CCP’s common labels of calling Falun Gong “political.” Their reasoning violated Australia’s Equal Opportunity Act 1995, however, and they also lost the case.

“It is worth noting that we enjoyed the full backing of the vast majority of the local population and media who were generally outraged by such discrimination,” Pearson-Smith said. “The few exceptions were those immigrants from mainland China who were tragically still terrified of the Chinese Communist Party even so far away from home.”