NEW YORK—It began with a few scribbles on the ground. Written in Chinese with chalk, the messages ranged from the innocuous—disease names and Chinese dish names—to the more offensive: curse words, slogans used in Communist propaganda in China, a phrase meaning “[expletive] exercise practice.”
The messages appeared at a spot on the edge of Seward Park in the Lower East Side, where a small group of people who practice a spiritual discipline banned in China, Falun Gong, regularly met in the mornings to do their taichi-like exercises. The messages started appearing with some frequency about half a year ago.
Last week, the veiled written threats turned real—the man behind the messages threatened to hit a Falun Gong practitioner during their morning exercises.
A Persecuted Practice
Falun Gong was banned in 1999 by the Chinese Communist regime, which launched a propaganda campaign to vilify the practice on state media. According to the Falun Dafa Information Center, the press office for Falun Gong, at any time hundreds of thousands of practitioners are detained. In detention, practitioners typically face brainwashing and torture. Tens of thousands have died from abuse, torture, and the harvesting of their organs for transplantation.
Outside China, Falun Gong practitioners face surveillance, intimidation, and sometimes physical violence, orchestrated by the Chinese Consulate and local pro-Beijing groups.
In 2008, Falun Gong practitioners in Flushing, Queens were verbally and physically assaulted by mobs, among whom were individuals later revealed to be members of local pro-Beijing Chinese associations. On a phone call recorded by an investigator, the then Chinese Consul General Peng Keyu bragged about encouraging the mobs that attacked the practitioners.
Chinatown Harassment
Whenever the ground was cleaned up from a rainstorm, the messages would appear, said Mun Yu Hon, 68, a Brooklyn resident who joins the practices in Seward Park every day. The practitioners begin their exercises at 6:15 a.m., and the messages would be there by the time they arrive.
“The writings were messy and made it seem like we didn’t have dignity,” said Lily Hung, 42, who chose not to use her real name for fear of retaliation. She said one time, there were drawn figures that showed the practitioners’ exercise movements. Hung attends the practices several times a month and is a Chinatown resident.
The practitioners had a hunch who the culprit was, but not until last Tuesday afternoon did Hon, while walking past the park on a shopping trip, witness the suspect in action. It was a Chinese man in his 50s or 60s, who regularly plays his bamboo flute at a spot near where the practitioners practice.
