Practitioners of Spiritual Practice Banned in China Get Harassed in New York

NEW YORK—It began with a few scribbles on the ground. Written in Chinese with chalk, the messages ranged from the innocuous—disease names and Chinese dish names—to the more offensive: curse words, slogans used in Communist propaganda in China, a phrase meaning “[expletive] exercise practice.”

Practitioners of Falun Dafa meditate in the William H. Seward park in Chinatown, Manhattan, on Sept. 29, 2014. Samira Bouaou/Epoch Times

NEW YORK—It began with a few scribbles on the ground. Written in Chinese with chalk, the messages ranged from the innocuous—disease names and Chinese dish names—to the more offensive: curse words, slogans used in Communist propaganda in China, a phrase meaning “[expletive] exercise practice.”

The messages appeared at a spot on the edge of Seward Park in the Lower East Side, where a small group of people who practice a spiritual discipline banned in China, Falun Gong, regularly met in the mornings to do their taichi-like exercises. The messages started appearing with some frequency about half a year ago.

Last week, the veiled written threats turned real—the man behind the messages threatened to hit a Falun Gong practitioner during their morning exercises.

Scribblings on the ground of Seward Park in Manhattan, N.Y., on Sept. 23, 2014. These messages frequently appear at this site where a group of Falun Gong practitioners do meditation exercises every morning. The messages range from the innocuous to the offensive. Annie Wu/Epoch Times