Asian Man Allegedly Attacks Falun Gong Practitioner in New York

China’s communist regime has been persecuting Falun Gong since 1999, and it is known to have extended its campaign overseas.

An Asian man allegedly assaulted a female Falun Gong practitioner in New York City on Feb. 27, the latest in a series of incidents raising concerns about possible Beijing-linked intimidation in the United States.

New York resident Lydia Dong said she was attacked while volunteering at a Falun Gong information booth in Flushing, Queens. Timestamps on video footage of the event show the attack took place at around 1:15 p.m. local time that Friday.

“An unidentified individual approached me from behind and forcefully struck me on the back of my head, knocking me to the ground before quickly fleeing. My glasses and hat fell off. I then realized I had been attacked and, after getting up and putting my glasses back on, the person was nowhere to be seen,” Dong said in an interview with The Epoch Times on March 1.

After getting back on her feet, Dong called the police. A pedestrian who witnessed the attack described the assailant as an Asian man about 5 feet 9 inches tall, according to Dong.

A street camera captured the incident, showing the assailant dressed mostly in black and wearing a hat. In the video, he approaches Dong from behind and strikes her on the head with his right hand before fleeing the scene.

Dong recalled feeling immediate pain and numbness after the attack, though it left no visible wound. As the discomfort persisted and her heartbeat quickened, the police called an ambulance for her, Dong added.

At the hospital, Dong said she experienced a headache, numbness in her arms and legs, and elevated blood pressure. “The doctor believes [the symptoms] were related to the attack,” Dong said.

The day after the attack, she continued to experience discomfort, including a tingling sensation in her head, like “ants crawling,” and muscle soreness.

The information booth where Dong volunteered is organized by the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, which was founded shortly after The Epoch Times published “Nine Commentaries on the Chinese Communist Party” in 2004. The editorial series helped inspire a grassroots movement known as “Tuidang,” or “quit the party,” in which Chinese people renounce their ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).

Flushing has regularly seen incidents of pro-CCP activists harassing or attacking Falun Gong practitioners, dating back to at least 2008. In April last year, the center received multiple threatening messages over nine days, warning of bombings, shootings, car accidents, rape, and other acts of terror targeting Falun Gong practitioners and supporters. The threats escalated the following day when a man showed up at a booth in Flushing and attempted to knock it over.

Another incident took place in Brooklyn in 2024, when an Asian man allegedly attacked several Falun Gong practitioners during a parade for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival.

In 2022, a suspect named Zheng Buqiu was charged with a hate crime and criminal mischief in the fourth degree, for allegedly repeatedly vandalizing information stands in Flushing.

Lydia Dong. Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party

Dong said the hostility toward Falun Gong is largely fueled by the Chinese regime’s messaging.

The Chinese people’s minds “have been filled with propaganda from the Chinese Communist Party,” Dong said. “As a result, they tend to harbor feelings of hatred toward Falun Gong.”

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice grounded in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Introduced to the Chinese public in 1992, the practice spread widely by the late 1990s, with official estimates placing the number of practitioners at more than 70 million in China.

Out of fear of its popularity, the CCP launched a brutal campaign to eliminate the practice in July 1999. Since then, hundreds of thousands of practitioners have been detained and subjected to torture, with thousands dying as a result of abuse while in custody, according to Falun Dafa Information Center. Due to strict censorship in China, the true death toll is likely far higher.

The ongoing persecution in China makes it impossible to hold such booths publicly, Dong said, but it is possible to do so in the United States, thus making her effort “very meaningful.”

“What we do is hand out materials to pedestrians passing by. Those who want them can take them. If someone wants to learn more, we talk with them. The goal is to use this approach to show people what Falun Gong is really about,” Dong said.

Michael Yu, director of the Global Service Center, told The Epoch Times that he suspected the assailant had been trained by the Chinese military or intelligence services, based on the way he attacked Wong. Yu added that the incident would represent another example of the CCP’s transnational repression.

“I think he acted out of his hatred for Falun Gong,” Yu said. “Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a legally recognized religious organization in the United States. His action could be seen as a form of hate crime, directly targeting a religious group and, in doing so, challenging one of the foundational principles of the United States.”