San Francisco Supervisor Pushes for Investigation

A case of discrimination occurring within San Francisco was entered into the future agenda at the Board of Supervisors meeting last Tuesday, Jan. 10. District 6 Supervisor Chris Daly entered two pieces of legislation. A resolution and a hearing request were submitted to specifically look at discrimination by the Chinese Chamber of Commerce (CCC) against the Falun Gong spiritual group's participation in the San Francisco Chinese New Year Parade.

The Board of Supervisors encourages citizens to participate every Tuesday in the civil process by coming to listen directly in the second floor Legislative Chamber in City Hall, or by watching real-time cablecast on San Francisco Cable TV 26. The Board considers ordinances and resolutions brought to them, in which the members of the public are urged to testify. Daly hopes to see a "swift calendaring" of these two items being discussed in the next two weeks. The Chinese New Year Parade is scheduled for Feb. 11.

In front of City Hall Tuesday, some Falun Gong practitioners held banners and asked passersby to sign a petition while others went to the board meeting. Huy Lu, a Falun Gong practitioner who works in San Francisco, addressed the supervisors while explaining, "As you can see, the SF Examiner put this issue on the headline news in last weekend's edition. There are over one thousand people who have already signed a petition to support Falun Gong for participating in the Chinese New Year Parade."

In a press interview outside of the hearing room, Supervisor Daly was asked why he raised this issue to the committee for investigation. Daly, who is the newly appointed Budget and Finance Chair of the Board of Supervisors, explained that he had been given no reasonable answer for various acts of discrimination against the Falun Gong group during the last two years. "That's when I decided to bring the full force of my office as a member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors into this issue to take a closer look as to 'why'," Daly said.

Since 1961, San Francisco tax monies have been promoting non-profit cultural organizations within the city. The CCC has been given $77,200 of the city's money for the 2005-06 parade, funded by the "Grants for the Arts/San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund" (GFTA). GFTA was established through a combination of City and State legislation, and approved by the city's Board of Supervisors. Its program has evolved into a national model of arts funding. The GFTA website states: "The Fund is committed to supporting the broadest spectrum of the San Francisco arts community," and according to Khan Wong of GFTA, "there is an anti-discrimination clause in the Grant agreement."

Started in the 1860's by Chinese people living in San Francisco as a means to educate the community about their culture, the parade and festival have grown to be the largest celebration of Asian culture outside of Asia. The Falun Gong parade group presents China's height of spiritual culture from the ancient Tang Dynasty and has won many parade awards. The CCC parade organizers have been the only ones to reject Falun Gong from a parade. Falun Gong has participated in numerous other parades in San Francisco and throughout California, the most recent being the Hollywood Bowl parade in Los Angeles and the NBC Holiday Parade in San José.

One reporter from NTDTV questioned that the issue of discrimination is really more than just a Falun Gong issue, becoming an issue on denial of the freedom of expression. Daly agreed by responding, "San Franciscans have always prided themselves in thinking globally and acting locally. So we have taken official action to basically try to deter Human Rights abuses in San Francisco. Here in a city with the Chinese population the largest outside of mainland China, this is an issue that hits closer to home than most…" Falun Gong being discriminated against relates back to the Falun Gong persecution in China and the connection between the Chinese Communist Party and San Francisco's CCC and Chinese Consulate.

Chris Daly witnessed himself the discrimination in last year's Chinese New Year Parade and feels that discrimination seems to be occurring again this year. Daly said, "Even though I am not a Falun Gong practitioner or a Friend of Falun Gong, I, as a concerned individual, global citizen, am generally concerned with International Human Rights, and very concerned with the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China by the government of the People's Republic of China, and when that persecution gets compounded by the discrimination within the United States of America in a city like San Francisco where we pride ourselves on our tolerance, on our diversity and our accepting of others, it really is a shame."

And Chris Daly detailed it further when he said, "…and now we have institutional discrimination where the CCC has basically banned a group for political reasons and that's not right in San Francisco. It's a parade; it's supposed to be a fun thing, a positive thing and when you ban groups and discriminate against groups in a parade, you no longer have a parade, you have a political march in the wrong direction."