Homeless Man Asks A Chinese Person for Money After Harassing Falun Gong Practitioners in Manhattan

The Chinese man walking back and forth at the site when the homeless was making trouble

(The World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) intends to investigate this person. Those who have information regarding this person should contact them.)

After a week of heat and humidity, the weather in New York turned nice. During Sunday afternnon on September the 5th, Time Square and nearby areas were very bus with both traffic and pedestrians.

I could see some Falun Gong practitioners in yellow T-shirts distributing leaflets and demonstrating the Falun Gong exercises on the street. Over the past several weeks, this has become a regular scene on the streets of New York City.

When I walked to the intersection of Broadway and 42nd street, I suddenly heard someone cursing loudly in English.

I approached the source of the commotion and when I arrived I could see that as dozens of Falun Gong practitioners were quietly doing the exercises or distributing materials, there was also a middle aged American with long, untrimmed hair and a beard. The man wore a dirty white shirt and had half a bottle of wine in one hand. He was cursing at a young Chinese Falun Gontg practitioner who was wearing a distinct yellow Falun Gong shirt. Later, he even started to push and bully the practitioner.

Right after that, he grabbed materials from a lady sitting next to him and threw them to the ground. When another practitioner wearing a pair of glasses tried to calm him down, the person spat at him.

When nobody paid him any attention, this person just made some noise. However, whenever someone approached him so as to talk to him, he became even more unreasonable and cursed even louder. Several minutes later, a police officer came and ordered the man to leave.

A person who may have been behind the homeless man harassing Falun Gong practitioners	An unknown Chinese man watching the homeless man harassing practitioners

A Falun Gong practitioner called Ms. Shiming Xiong of Philadelphia said: "It is so strange, we don't know where this guy came from and why he acted in such a way without been provocked. He seemed to go crazy when he grabbed materials from my hands and threw them to the ground." Ms. Xiong said that she was distributing Falun Gong related materials at another site and just came to this site a few minutes ago when this happened.

Another practitioner called Ms. Zhou said: "Since the persecution started in 1999, the typical response from Westerners after they learned about the persecution is showing sympathy to victims and condemning the perpetrators. This is the first time I've seen a westerner making trouble for practitioners' activities."

Ms. Zhenyu Sun of Connecticut witnessed the whole incident, and a reporter asked her what happened. She said: "I have seen this guy once before. When we held an anti-torture exhibition at Battery Park last week, he came to make trouble but was never phyiscal. He was ordered to leave by police. This time, he even pushed practitioners. Both times, there was this Chinese man who was close buy and was watching the homeless man. Whenever the homeless guy saw the presence of this Chinese person, he would become more violent." Ms. Sun then pointed to a Chinese man who was standing about ten meters away whilst saying: "That is the Chinese guy."

Following Ms. Sun's pointing, the reporter saw a middle-aged Chinese man standing there, watching the homeless man. When the homeless man's was fairly calm, he walked toward us, passed the homeless man and then stood at the other side to watch. Just as Ms. Sun described, the homeless man indeed started to curse loudly again when the Chinese guy passed him.

When the reporter asked the person if he was Chinese, he replied, "Yes." When the reporter asked him if he was from Mainland China, he said, "Yes." However, he was not willing to answer any other questions.

Ms. Sun said that when the homeless man saw the police coming, he approached the Chinese man and said: "Give me the money." At that point, the Chinese man left the scene with a blank face. Ms. Sun said that she thought someone had hired the homeless man to sabotage the activity.

When the reporter asked Ms. Zhou who might be behind the incident, she did not reply specifically. However, she pointed out that when they had an event in Battery Park last week, a person who claimed to be a staff member from the Chinese Consulate came to criticize their activity and said that the practitioners' recent activities in New York had made them "very angry."

When the reporter asked Ms. Sun why Falun Gong practitioners were gathering in New York, she said: "This persecution is so inhumane, and it is being covered up. As a result, there are many people who don't know the brutality of this persecution. Not enough has been done to stop it over the past five years. New York is a focal point of the world, and the UN annual meeting will be held here this month. We want to help everyone around the world know that Falun Gong is good, and that the persecution is wrong. We want people to help us to put an end to it. Maybe some people feared that their crimes would be exposed and wanted to sabotage our activities, and they've resorted to hiring homeless people to carry out their dirty deeds."

At around 5pm of ythe 5th of September, another homeless man went to the practitioners' anti-torture exhibition at Union Plaza. He loudly criticized practitioners. Two western ladies who were viewing the exhibition spoke out for practitioners and started to argue with him. The police came, and after checking the practitioners' permission to hold the exhibition, the police told the homeless man to leave.

A Chinese artist who was painting at the other side of the street said: "Falun practitioners are so compassionate. When that guy spat at the practitioners, they should have taught him a lesson but did not." He said that he deeply believed in integrity, and thought that Jiang [referring to Jinag Zemin, the former President and dictator of China] has accted extremmely brutally towards those who practise Falun Gong. He commented that it would be quite disgusting if it was the Chinese consulate had hired a homeless man to sabotage the events.

Ms. Sun said that a policeman told her to call 911 if they encountered this kind of problem again. If there is someone behind this incident, the police and FBI will both investigate.