Manhattan Rally Supports Ending Chinese Communist Party

Hundreds gathered at Columbus Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown on Sunday to support the 104 million-plus people who have renounced the Chinese Communist Party.
Manhattan Rally Supports Ending Chinese Communist Party
Catherine Yang
10/17/2011
Updated:
10/1/2015


<a><img src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2015/09/111016175533836_1.jpg" alt="Li Dayong, executive director the Tuidang movement, which helps Chinese nationals quit the Chinese communist party, speaks at a rally on Oct. 16, 2011 in New York's Chinatown. Over 100 million have already quit the party. (Dai Bing/The Epoch Times)" title="Li Dayong, executive director the Tuidang movement, which helps Chinese nationals quit the Chinese communist party, speaks at a rally on Oct. 16, 2011 in New York's Chinatown. Over 100 million have already quit the party. (Dai Bing/The Epoch Times)" width="575" class="size-medium wp-image-1796246"/></a>
Li Dayong, executive director the Tuidang movement, which helps Chinese nationals quit the Chinese communist party, speaks at a rally on Oct. 16, 2011 in New York's Chinatown. Over 100 million have already quit the party. (Dai Bing/The Epoch Times)

NEW YORK—Hundreds gathered at Columbus Park in Manhattan’s Chinatown on Sunday to support the 104 million-plus people who have renounced the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and its affiliated organizations since 2004.

Several pro-democracy groups, including the China Democracy Journal and China Democracy Party, were joined by people who support stopping the persecution of Falun Gong in China—a group that has been heavily persecuted by the CCP since 1999.

About 60 Chinese New Yorkers who have quit the CCP in the last few months were presented certificates at the event, and around 40 more passerby and friends of the supporters quit on the spot. This movement, called “Tuidang” in Chinese, has steadily been gaining traction. Recently, in the neighborhood of Flushing alone between 1,500 and 3,000 people each month are renouncing the CCP.

The rally started at around 10 a.m., after the Falun Gong practitioners who were on hand finished doing their slow moving, meditative exercises. Some of those who recently renounced the CCP asked the practitioners to teach them the exercises.

“I think the biggest obstacle is fear, because the CCP government, it’s not like the United States, you do not have freedom. There’s no freedom of speech—if you go back to China you will be persecuted, and [it’s] very, very cruel persecution,” said Jenny Qian, one of those who had received a certificate for renouncing the CCP. “But I think we need to liberate. We need the freedom to belong to ourselves. This is a really great opportunity for a lot of people.”

“After the movement started, more and more people actively participated and now people are not so afraid anymore,” said Yi Rong, one of the event organizers.

Dr. Li Dayong, CEO of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, said the number is steadily increasing and we’re now seeing people around the world celebrating the tuidang movement. “Now when you ask someone, they quickly say ‘How do I quit?’ or ‘I’ve already quit!’

The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP is a nonprofit organization established in 2005. It has over 100 service centers in more than 30 countries, and helps people resign from the CCP via the Internet, hotlines, faxes, mail, and in person.

The tuidang movement began after this paper published an editorial series called “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party,” which provides an uncensored history of the nature and crimes of the CCP.

Wang Beiji, a human rights supporter, spoke at the event and said that Falun Gong practitioners were not only fighting against the persecution, but also standing up for the culture of China and all of the Chinese people. He mentioned how practitioners had helped break through the CCP’s Internet blockade and had reported on what the CCP has tried to cover up.

“I have no relation to Falun Gong, and I have never attended a Falun Gong or Tuidang event before, but I am here today because I want to thank you,” he said.

Zhou Yanhua, a Falun Gong practitioner, was a teacher in China, and said he was imprisoned in 2006 for giving a student a flier about Falun Gong. The principal of the school had alerted a CCP secretary, and Zhou says that because they had no grounds to arrest him on, they lied to him. He was told he'd be meeting the secretary for a conversation, but when he got to the destination a car was sent to abduct him and he was detained for a month and forced to watch CCP propaganda films nonstop, along with other forms of abuse.

“What is the reason to persecute someone based on their principles or beliefs?” Huang Xiang, poet and democracy activist, asked. “China has a very pure and traditional culture, and the CCP reacts to that with violence—against their own culture—time after time they destroy their own country. I want human rights—don’t I deserve basic human rights as a person?”

“The whole world needs to speak up, and Beijing needs to hear ‘Free China,’” Qian Bai said in his speech. “We need to push for it.”

Dr. Wang Zhi Yuan, president of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), says that after learning the truth about the CCP, people want to detach themselves from the party, and it is on its way to be dissolved.

“[The CCP] is not taking the kind of responsibility a government should... [and we] need to prevent them from destroying the country, let them know the whole world is watching. It’s time for people around the world to speak up.”

After the rally, the Tian Guo (Celestial Band) marching band led a parade around Chinatown of quit-CCP supporters, Falun Gong supporters and practitioners, a drum corps, and those mourning the loss of those killed by the CCP, ending back at Columbus Park in the afternoon.