ASSOCIATED PRESS
September 06, 2000

NEW YORK (AP)- They were railing against China on East 35th Street, deploring slavery in the Sudan on Third Avenue, championing the Iranian government in exile on First Avenue.

Everywhere New Yorkers turned Wednesday, they found protesters seizing a bit of the spotlight from the United Nations Millennium Summit, their voices mingling with the honking of horns on Manhattan streets.

Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners from around the world gathered in the morning at a park opposite the Chinese Mission to protest a crackdown on the movement's followers that began last year in China.

They sat, stock still, in silent meditative protest, and listened to statements read by practitioners who said they had been detained and beaten in China for practicing Falun Gong. The group then rose in unison and marched in orderly rows to the United Nations.

"We really hope that [Chinese President] will stop persecuting people who want to do this. We have no other intentions than peaceful ones," said Dong Li, a computer programmer from Mamaroneck, who has practiced Falun Gong for a year.

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