New York Times Reports on Falun Gong Practitioners' Peaceful Appeals in Manhattan (Excerpt)

November 22nd, 2004

New York Times correspondent Lydia Polgreen begins her story on Falun Gong's activities in New York in dramatic fashion, stating:

"Cendana Wirasari Adiwarga sat perfectly still, her eyelids shut tight as Quincy Sun dragged a toothpick soaked with fake blood across her plump left cheek."

" 'There, all done,' Ms. Sun said, appraising her handiwork. Ms. Adiwarga's smooth skin had been transformed into a garish tableau of bloody cuts and bruises. Ms. Adiwarga then rose to take her place inside a tiny metal cage, where she planned to sit for three hours on a blustery late October morning opposite a federal courthouse in Lower Manhattan.

" 'Maybe if people here see me suffer, they will know just one tiny speck of suffering in China,' Ms. Adiwarga said."

The article goes on to describe how the two women had flown long hours at considerable expense from the Far East to let people know about the persecution of practitioners of Falun Gong.

These practitioners "and hundreds of other demonstrators from across the globe are flooding the streets and subways of New York, cheerfully but very persistently pressing stacks of literature into the hands of harried passers-by, waving gruesome photographs of victims and simulating brutal acts of torture. They claim that the Chinese government is not only suppressing the practice in China, as has been widely known and largely condemned, but that it is using harassment, spying and intimidation to destroy Falun Gong in the United States."

The report states that independent human rights groups have affirmed that practitioners of Falun Gong in China have been sent to labour camps, subjected to physical and psychological torture and killed since the Chinese government began persecuting the movement's 100 million followers in 1999.

"Thus the demonstrations in New York, which play out in parks and on street corners from City Hall to the Museum of Natural History. They began in earnest with the Republican National Convention in August but have continued, buoyed by volunteers from around the world like Ms. Adiwarga and Ms. Sun, from Indonesia and Australia. Others come from Taiwan, Singapore and New Zealand."

The New York Times quotes Falun Dafa Association spokesman Levi Browde: "Not content with torturing and killing in their own country, the Chinese government has carried out campaigns of intimidation against practitioners in the United States. They send consular officials to intimidate practitioners here in the United States, even American citizens. We think Americans should be aware of what the Chinese government does in their own country."

"The demonstrations are graphic," states Ms. Polgreen. "Photographs depict emaciated corpses, or victims with faces burned or battered. Over the past couple of months they have become a fixture on the city's streets, deeply unironic bits of street theater, drawing very mixed responses."

" 'At first I thought it looks like a performance, some kind of art theater,' said Reinhard Kressner, a Berliner visiting New York, who stopped to look at a particularly gruesome demonstration in Lower Manhattan, and was moved enough to sign a petition supporting Falun Gong. 'This is about human rights. No one should suffer like this.'"

The article points out that the current protests "are aimed largely at publicizing a concerted effort by the Chinese government to harass practitioners and their supporters in the United States and other countries. Practitioners of Falun Gong have filed several lawsuits in recent years against Chinese officials and embassy employees. They have compiled a list of incidents that runs 300 pages."

Citing why such lawsuits are necessary, the article states: "In an example cited in a federal lawsuit, a practitioner was attacked by men believed to be associated with the Chinese consulate in San Francisco while handing out Falun Gong literature in a public park. Tires were slashed on the car that a practitioner in Flushing used to transport Falun Gong materials, the papers said. The complexity of serving papers on a sovereign government has held up the lawsuit, which was filed in Federal Court in Washington in April 2002, according to Jason Dzubow, a lawyer handling the case, but arrangements to serve papers though the State Department are currently being finalized, he said."

The reporter also interviewed Ms. Gail Rachlin, a real estate broker in New York and an unofficial spokeswoman for Falun Gong in New York. She "said that the practice was peaceful, and that its adherents had no political aims."

" 'People engaged in gentle exercises to improve their health who embrace truthfulness, compassion and forbearance are no threat to the Chinese government,' Ms. Rachlin said. 'All we seek is the right to practice without fear of death and torture.'"

The New York Times also noted that "Congress passed a resolution last month demanding that the Chinese government 'immediately stop interfering in the exercise of religious and political freedoms within the United States, such as the right to practice Falun Gong, that are guaranteed by the United States Constitution,' and urging the attorney general to investigate allegations of harassment and intimidation by Chinese officials."

In conclusion, the Times reporter interviewed Henny Chen, a 35-year-old merchandiser for a garment company in Jakarta, who "took two weeks off work, paid $865 for a round-trip ticket to New York and crammed into a room with other practitioners in a Times Square hotel."

" 'If American people know how the Chinese government hurts people, maybe they would ask their government to help us,'" Ms. Chen said. " 'We are here to show the truth.'"