Falun Gong Practitioners Targeted by CCP’s Global Repression Campaign, Say US Faith Leaders, Experts

The campaign has involved smear articles in mainstream U.S. media, online disinformation, staged protests, and even bomb threats aimed at Shen Yun performances.

Shen Yun Performing Arts at the Kennedy Center Opera House in Washington on Feb. 24, 2025. Lisa Fan/The Epoch Times

In recent months, concerns have grown in the United States over what experts and religious leaders are calling a new wave of transnational repression by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) targeting adherents of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, an ancient spiritual practice from China that has been persecuted by the CCP since 1999.

The campaign has involved smear articles in mainstream U.S. media, online disinformation, staged protests, and even bomb threats aimed at performances by Shen Yun Performing Arts, a New York-based performing arts organization founded by Falun Gong practitioners that includes dance and music performances showcasing highlights from China’s 5,000-year history under the banner “China before communism.”

On Feb. 20, Washington’s John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts was evacuated for several hours after receiving a bomb threat on the opening night of Shen Yun’s U.S. tour. The anonymous threat disrupted the sold-out event and triggered widespread condemnation, including from the White House.

There were at least 70 million people practicing Falun Gong in China before 1999, according to Chinese authorities at the time. The Falun Dafa Infocenter estimates that over the past 20 years, several million Falun Gong practitioners have been detained by the CCP, with hundreds of thousands tortured and untold numbers killed as unwilling donors for China’s organ transplantation business.

Faith Leader Response

Among those speaking out is Pastor Mark Burns, a prominent evangelical leader and President Donald Trump’s campaign spiritual adviser, who denounced the threats and broader intimidation campaign as acts of “terrorism.”

“If you’re going to do a bomb threat at the Kennedy Center while there’s an amazing production going on, just simply because you’re trying to protest your beliefs, that’s terrorism,” Burns said in an interview with the Chinese-language bureau of NTD, a sister media outlet of The Epoch Times. “People should have a right to practice their faith in peace, without being threatened or without being persecuted. So I wholeheartedly condemn it. I stand with the Chinese American people.”

Burns, co-founder of the NOW Television Network and a board member of Pastors for Trump, called the CCP’s attempt to export religious suppression to American soil evil, adding that it cannot be allowed in America.

“The CCP’s influence around the world, especially their intent to have it here in America, needs to be stopped and silenced,” he said.

The pastor’s remarks came in the wake of what analysts describe as an intensifying CCP campaign to discredit and intimidate Falun Gong practitioners abroad. Tactics reportedly include orchestrated social media attacks, lawsuits through proxies, and media narratives echoing CCP talking points.

CCP Campaign in US

Burns is not the only voice raising concerns. European investigator Taliy Shkurupiy, who researches authoritarian influence operations, says the CCP’s persecution campaign is rooted in a broader movement, one with deep connections to Russia and Western media manipulation.

“What is happening with international repressions against religious minorities, an especially vivid example is [that] persecution against Falun Dafa is, well, basically initiated by the ‘anti-cult’ network of Alexander Dvorkin, who is the leader of a so called anti-cult movement, which was organized in 1993,” Shkurupiy told the Chinese-language bureau of NTD. “He established the methodology of persecution of innocent people, not only in Russia, where he is based, but also internationally. And as we see, persecutions against Falun Dafa are happening not only in China and Russia, but in countries where there is no communist, communism, or totalitarianism.”

Dvorkin is a controversial Russian American activist who appears regularly on Russian state media and closely aligns with the Russian government.

Shkurupiy said that the CCP has collaborated with a network of journalists in the West to push its propaganda model internationally, attempting to destabilize a society. He said that Dvorkin regularly visits China, and his methodology is used to recruit agents in the media to attack and demonize certain religious minorities.

Last year, The New York Times published a lengthy article attacking Shen Yun Performing Arts in what appeared to be an attempt to paint a picture based on a predetermined narrative. Shkurupiy believes that such portrayals help normalize state-driven dehumanization efforts.

“That’s not news reporting,” he said.

“It’s a campaign ... to demonize [and] dehumanize because there [is] no news. It’s the repetition of the same things over and over again.

US Response to Defend Religious Freedom

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pa.) said in May that the CCP’s campaign to suppress Shen Yun is tantamount to unrestricted warfare. He told The Epoch Times that the CCP is fighting on every inch of this battlefield.

It’s important for the United States and the West in general to “understand the pathology of this enemy,” he said. “The CCP just takes advantage of the U.S. judiciary system and also the freedom of the media.”

In response to attacks and bias toward religious groups, Trump signed an executive order in May establishing the Religious Liberty Commission, designed to promote religious liberty and monitor threats, both domestic and foreign. The commission will produce a comprehensive report on threats to religious freedom.

Burns praised the initiative.

“I am with President Trump, who is a firm believer in allowing people to practice their faith, and I’m here to bring encouragement to those Chinese Americans and to those that are in China who practice their faith that God is with you,” he said.

Today, as many Falun Gong practitioners have found refuge in the United States and other Western countries, some say that the CCP’s persecution has been following them via propaganda, lawsuits, and threats.

“Somebody’s got to speak up,” said Burns. “We have to stop it. We cannot allow it to infiltrate here in America.”

Li Xin contributed to this report.