Man Found Guilty of Queens Attack

Fu Ni (wearing a red jacket) attacks Mr. Boon Tion Erh in front of the Queens Library in Flushing on May 20, 2008. (The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Fu Ni, a member of a pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) group, was arrested after attacking Mr. Boon Tion Erh, an adherent of Falun Gong, in front of the Queens Library in Flushing on May 20, and charged for third degree assault. Ni was fined on Dec. 25 by the small claims part of the Queens County Civil Court.

Flushing, a neighborhood at the last stop of the 7 subway line into Queens, became a focal point of violence and religious intolerance back in May of this year. A group of Chinese in support of the CCP with members numbering in the hundreds came together to attack adherents of Falun Gong.

Mr. Erh was in front of the library on Main Street when he was grabbed and attacked by between five and seven attackers. A photo taken shows one of the men choking him, an egg thrown and smashed against his head as Fu Ni held Mr. Erh by his wrist and jacket. With his ear torn and bleeding, and egg yolk dripping off his head, Mr. Erh managed to escape and pressed charges against his attackers

One of the witnesses to the attack, Dr. Wenyi Wang, said, “There were many people on the day of the attack. Fu Ni was grabbing onto Mr. Erh’s sleeves and ordering others to beat him. It was something undeniable.”

Mr. Erh asked only for the $1,000 to cover his hospital fees. Fu Ni was ordered by the court to pay the full $1,020 fine for his attack. “I did not go to sue him for the money,” Mr. Erh said. “This verdict has meaning, because justice needs to be upheld. Good will always be rewarded while evil will always be punished—that’s an unchangeable truth.”

Falun Gong is a Chinese meditation practice based on being honest, kind, and tolerant. Once widely popular, adherents were targeted for persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in China back in 1999 after a state-run poll found that up to 100 million people had taken up the practice.