SAN FRANCISCO—In San Francisco’s Chinatown, simply telling someone about your beliefs can get you a sock in the jaw. After seven months of incidents, the city is starting to take notice.
In cities around the world Falun Gong practitioners routinely set up informational tables or poster boards, pass out fliers, and tell passersby about what the spiritual practice of Falun Gong is and how it has been persecuted in China.
In San Francisco’s Chinatown, Falun Gong practitioners engaging in such gentle advocacy have been the victims of repeated, violent attacks over the past seven months.
The San Francisco police are now considering whether to classify these attacks as hate crimes.
“We take hate crimes as seriously as any place in the world,” said San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr on Thursday. “If the investigation shows that the folks were attacked based on their religion, absolutely that would be the motivation, and it would be a hate crime and charged accordingly.”
San Francisco’s mayor, Ed Lee, is also now giving these attacks his attention. On Wednesday he told an Epoch Times reporter that he is looking into the attacks and expected a briefing on them that afternoon by Chief Suhr.
Sherry Zhang, spokesperson for the Falun Gong practitioners in San Francisco, has no doubt these attacks are hate crimes.
“The attacks are directed at practitioners who are telling people about Falun Gong,” Zhang said. “They are often wearing clothes that identify them as practitioners and they are passing out materials that tell people about their faith. Their attackers often curse Falun Gong while committing acts of violence. These are hate crimes.”
Zhang says the hate does not originate in San Francisco. She says it has been imported from Beijing.
Falun Gong involves practicing five sets of meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
In July 1999 the then-head of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), Jiang Zemin, launched a campaign to “eradicate” Falun Gong. Jiang feared how popular Falun Gong had become—more people were practicing Falun Gong than were members of the CCP, and he feared the people of China would prefer Falun Gong’s beliefs to communist ideology.
Since Jiang launched his campaign, Chinese Consulates around the world have made it their business to try to suppress local Falun Gong practitioners.
Zhang said this is what is happening in San Francisco’s Chinatown.
“These attacks are often done by people known to be closely associated with the CCP,” Zhang said. “One of the attackers regularly shouts CCP slogans in Chinatown. I believe the Chinese Consulate is orchestrating this. There is a large Chinese population in San Francisco, and the Consulate does not want them to hear about what the regime has done to practitioners back in China.”
Day-long Insults
The attacks started on Nov. 27, 2011. At Portsmouth Square in Chinatown there is a Quitting the CCP Service Center. This Service Center is manned by Falun Gong practitioners who provide information to Chinese and explain to them why they need to renounce all connections with the CCP.
At this stand, a volunteer named Chen endured hours of insults at the hands of a Chinese man in his forties who then tried to beat him.
“That man stayed around us all day long and hurled insults at practitioners relentlessly,” said Chen.
There were some other people who splashed water or set off smoke grenades, according to Chen. When he started videotaping the scene with his phone, the man in his forties tried but failed to snatch his mobile phone.
The attacker then started trying to hit Chen. When Chen evaded the beating, the man grabbed a wooden stick from the ground and tried to hit Chen’s head, Chen said, but missed.
In a subsequent review of the video, Chen identified to the police the man in his forties and the involvement of another woman who helps to hand out menus to pedestrians for a local restaurant. A police report was filed.
Reporter Beaten
This incident led to one on Dec. 18 in which an Epoch Times reporter named Ms. Tian was the victim.
Tian was familiar with the attack on Chen and spotted the woman who had been handing out restaurant menus interacting with an old man wearing red clothes.
A woman wearing a red hat spotted the reporter watching and rushed at her.
While the woman physically pushed and dragged Tian, another woman wearing a white hat joined the assault.
Even though the woman wearing the white hat was attacking Tian, she shouted, “I was beaten by the reporter!” As the incident developed, several passers-by stopped to help Tian, but they were also attacked.
A woman who witnessed the whole incident told Tian, “Please write down my phone number so that you may contact me whenever you feel necessary. I witnessed how she assaulted you.”
Two elderly passers-by also voiced their support, saying “We saw she beat you. We are not leaving. Instead, we will stay with you until the police come.”
Upon the arrival of the police, the red-hat-wearing woman gave the officers an inaccurate statement about the incident, according to Tian.
Mob Defends Consul General
The People’s Republic of China consul general for San Francisco, Gao Zhansheng, sent a letter dated Jan. 18 to Seattle officials attempting to discourage them from showing support for the Chinese cultural show Shen Yun.
Shen Yun’s mission, according to its website, is to revive traditional Chinese culture. The company’s performances often include an act that portrays the persecution of Falun Gong—a contemporary instance of the CCP’s hostility toward China’s traditional beliefs.
On Feb. 6, Falun Gong practitioners staged a protest of the consul general’s action in the Civic Center neighborhood in San Francisco. A mob whose identities remain unknown assaulted some of the practitioners.
Ms. Shi was holding up a board with “Expel Gao Zhansheng” on it. A middle-aged woman in a black coat and a middle-aged man in a brown leather jacket dashed toward her. They insulted her verbally, and then the woman pushed Ms. Shi harshly.
Mr. Zhou, another practitioner, was also assaulted by the man in the brown jacket. With much force, the man pushed Mr. Zhou a distance of 10 yards.
According to Ms. Shi, when she moved to another place and continued the protest with her sign board, the woman in the black coat looked to see if there were any cameras around and then beat Ms. Shi.
Attackers ‘Incited’
On February 23, an old woman used her walking stick to knock down the display boards at the Portsmouth Square Quitting the CCP Service Center.
Mr. Zhou, a volunteer at the service center tried to stop her, and told her he would report her to the police if she continued to make trouble. The old woman ignored him and kept knocking down the display boards, so Mr. Zhou called the police.
Another volunteer, Ms. Zhang (not the spokesperson, Sherry Zhang), tried to capture the scene with her cell phone. The old woman ran toward her and waved her walking stick trying to hit her. She held Ms. Zhang tightly to stop her, and tried to grab her cell phone.
Another old man also came to help grab Ms. Zhang’s cell phone. Ms. Shang, another volunteer at the Service Center, helped Ms. Zhang escape, but Shang herself was knocked down on the ground by someone, and the back of her hand was swollen from the heavy fall.
The old woman went back to destroy the displays, and a group of people came to join her. When the police arrived, this group of people lied to police that the volunteers at the Service Center beat the old woman, according to the practitioners who were there.
When the police went over the pictures stored in Ms. Zhang’s cell phone, a woman even attempted to grab the cell phone from the police.
A policeman told the volunteers that the situation was very unfavorable for them, as someone incited these old people to assault them. He kindly advised the volunteers to be extra careful.
Attempted Theft
Falun Gong practitioners regularly get together at Portsmouth Square early in the morning and practice their exercises together. On the morning of April 11, Mr. Fang Wei, whose eyes were closed because he was meditating, heard someone at around 5:20 a.m. steal a Falun Gong banner that was tied onto a tree.
Fang noticed a person trying to run away with the banner. He stopped her and waited for the police to come. The woman tried her best to escape, and bit Mr. Fang’s hand. When the police came, the woman was jailed.
Dangerous Intersection
In Chinatown, a man who habitually wears a red shirt has claimed the territory of one corner at the crossroads of Washington St. and Grant St in Chinatown for many years.
At this corner, he stands on a stool, hangs a poster board on his chest, and then spends the day cursing democratic activists, Falun Gong, The Epoch Times, and New Tang Dynasty TV.
On April 28, two female practitioners came to this intersection to tell people about Falun Gong.
According to these practitioners, the man suddenly came down from his stool and pushed one of them forcefully, surprising her. The traffic was heavy at the time and his push could have landed her in front of a car, she said.
The practitioner recovered from the push and returned to where she had stood. The man pushed her again with such force, she said, that she almost tipped over.
Although practitioners did not call police, a passer-by took pictures of the incident, and was willing to provide testimony if needed in the future.
Intersection Revisited
A group of young practitioners came to the intersection of Grant St. and Washington St. on June 10 to tell passers-by about the 13-year-long persecution of Falun Gong.
Around noon, more than 20 people came who began insulting the practitioners. When they noticed someone was videotaping them, an older man approached the practitioners and swung at Derek Wang, hitting him in the jaw. He then hit Wang again in the face. His punches were photographed.
A passer-by helped call police. When the police came, the man who had hit Wang sat down on the ground, and then laid down pretending he had fainted. After the police checked the video, the attacker was arrested, although the police also loaded him into an ambulance since he claimed to be ill.
The man wearing the red shirt was involved in the assault as well. According to practitioners at the scene, he beat female practitioner Wang Dafang. At the hospital she was diagnosed as having a contusion on her face. She later discovered her shoulder had been injured.
Another Beating
The next weekend, on Saturday June 16 at the same intersection at around 6:30 p.m., the man in the red shirt attacked Falun Gong practitioners holding posterboards with information about the persecution, according to the practitioners who were there.
Chin climbed onto a mailbox, and used a wooden board to hit two female practitioners from above. The practitioners suffered serious arm injuries. One of them was hit on the head, and her eyeglasses fell and shattered on the ground.
The police issued a citation to the man in the red shirt.
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