More than 100 Falun Gong practitioners gathered in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York City on Sept. 25 to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong and the regime’s human rights abuses, during the week-long U.N. General Assembly meetings.
“This persecution has already gone on for 25 years—it’s been relentless for 25 years, and the persecution inside China is brutal, including forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners who are alive,” Xia Deyun, a Falun Gong practitioner, told The Epoch Times.
“We’re gathered here to urge all nations to stand up against these gross human rights abuses, to speak out against the CCP’s ongoing persecution of Falun Gong.”
Xia began practicing Falun Gong in the mid-1990s, during the peak of the practice’s popularity, before the CCP began its brutal persecution campaign in 1999. Xia was detained for her faith multiple times before she left China in 2001.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline and meditation practice based on the principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance.
The CCP began its persecution of Falun Gong in 1999 and, on July 20, conducted mass arrests of practitioners nationwide. Jiang personally directed the persecution of Falun Gong, ordering his cadres to “slander their reputations, bankrupt them financially, and physically destroy them,” “beat them to death and count their deaths as suicide,” and “cremate their bodies without verifying their identities.”
Reports soon emerged of abductions and wrongful detentions, during which practitioners were subjected to torture, brainwashing, sexual abuse, forced medical procedures, and even live organ harvesting. The persecution has continued unabated for 25 years.
Chen Yikui said that in February 2022, he was taken to a police station where an officer said he was going to draw Chen’s blood. There were no medical staff present, and Chen said he had the cold realization that he was being tracked as an organ harvesting target.
Chen Jingyu (no relation to Chen Yikui) told The Epoch Times that her older sister, who still resides in China, was abducted by the CCP in March. Chen said she didn’t even know about the abduction until a month later, through communication with mutual friends, because she called her sister infrequently, knowing that her sister’s phone was being monitored. When she finally learned which detention center her sister was in and called the authorities there, she said, the police officer would not even give his surname.
“They’re afraid. They know they’re doing something wrong; they know all these practitioners they’re persecuting are good people,” Chen said.
Despite the persecution, many Chinese continue to practice Falun Gong.
Xia and multiple other practitioners at the protest told The Epoch Times that they had never had second thoughts about continuing to live by the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. They described how practicing Falun Gong had improved their health, morality, and spirituality and even showed them what it meant to be a good person. Today, Falun Gong is practiced in about 100 countries around the world.
Kong Huanshan, 70, told The Epoch Times he joined the protest because he wanted world leaders to stop the CCP from persecuting Falun Gong and “destroying human rights.”
Falun Gong practitioner Zhou Linlin told The Epoch Times that because of the CCP’s relentless persecution and propaganda campaign, there are still many people in the world who do not know the truth about the practice.
“The United Nations should speak out about the persecution of Falun Gong by the CCP so that more people can understand what has happened,” Zhou said. She added that the CCP’s live organ harvesting has now extended to victims beyond Falun Gong practitioners.
“Here, in the free world, we can and have to speak out to help those who are persecuted in China ... and I hope one day all of them can be free, too.”
Yi Zhongyuan, president of the New York Falun Dafa Association, a volunteer group that offers to teach people the five meditative exercises of Falun Gong for free in parks across New York City and parts of New York state, has participated in these demonstrations in front of the U.N. annually.
“Falun Gong practitioners have suffered this persecution since 1999, have suffered at the hands of the CCP for 25 years in what is a large-scale violation of human rights,” she told The Epoch Times. “We’re calling on the United Nations to help us stop this persecution, to protest the CCP’s brutal human rights abuses.”
Yi said that over these 25 years, Falun Gong practitioners, even inside China, have continuously tried to debunk the CCP’s propaganda about the practice, sharing a message of truth, compassion, and tolerance with the world.
