Parade participants carry a banner which reads "Support the 60 Million Chinese People who Have Quit the Communist Party." (The Epoch Times)
Participants marched from 48th and 8th Ave. in Brooklyn and carried banners in both Chinese and English announcing the withdrawals. Among them were Chinese immigrants, human rights activists, and groups persecuted by the CCP inside China.
“I think the panic of the CCP’s collapse shows itself in two areas: a large number of corrupt officials escaping the country, and the authorities using tanks to guard against the common people on National Day,” said Wang Zhiyuan, a representative from the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG) a nonprofit organization which investigates the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa (Falun Gong).
Mr. Zhiyuan commented that withdrawals from the CCP are more than just a surface act, and results from Chinese citizens resisting totalitarianism and resisting persecution. He added that his organization will continue their research on the CCP’s persecution of Falun Dafa and “see that all those who have perpetrated crimes be brought to justice,” he said.
The movement of Chinese withdrawing their membership from the CCP began in December 2004. Referred to in Chinese as the “Tui Dang” or “Quit the Party” movement, renunciations come from members of the Chinese Communist Party, The Young Pioneers, and the Communist Youth League.
There are an estimated 65 million members in the CCP, with nearly every Chinese national forced to join the Youth League in school. The movement of withdrawals is viewed as a peaceful way of stopping the Chinese regime’s numerous persecutions against its people, which includes the arrest and torture of lawyers, democracy activists, house Christians, and other religious groups.
In response to the positive image the CCP presents to foreign media, Wang Junze, a parade participant from the China Democracy Journal said that, “If the CCP’s leadership and system were good, we wouldn’t have to be so far from our family, we wouldn’t have had to make this long and arduous journey to the United States.”
The movement has spread through China, with an estimated 50,000 withdrawals submitted each day to a global team of volunteers and the Web site of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party. The number of daily withdrawals has been steadily increasing since the movement began.
Winner of New Tang Dynasty Television’s 2009 Cooking Competition, and Falun Dafa practitioner Chen Shuiming was among the parade’s participants. He commented that it has been 10 years since the CCP began its persecution against Falun Dafa, a meditation practice which places emphasis on being kind, honest, and tolerant toward others.
Mr. Shuiming said he benefited from Falun Dafa and that his arrhythmia disappeared after a month of practice. “I want to use my personal experience to say that Falun Dafa is good, Falun Dafa is just really good. And I advise those helpers of the CCP—don’t be an accomplice in evil. Heavenly principles cannot be violated. Immediately stop all campaigns to persecute Falun Gong and sincerely repent.”
