Practitioners from Toronto went to NY's Chinatown at noon on Sept. 5 to promote Falun Dafa. They demonstrated the exercises in front of the Confucius Building. Some practitioners were handing out flyers that explained Falun Gong to pedestrians.
After about thirty minutes, three people arrived who began to shout at us. Our practitioners ignored them and sat quietly. Twenty minutes later, they left.
In the afternoon, a few more people came to harass the practitioners. Among them, a man who claimed that he was 77 years old shouted that the practitioners received money for promoting Falun Dafa and that they betrayed their country. His behavior was condemned by three Chinese people who walked by. He became silent.
Around 4:00 PM in the afternoon, one of our practitioners heard a middle-aged man talking on his cell phone: "They have too many people, send more people here." Shortly after this, a local Chinese person told us that the Chinese Council was organizing people across the street.
Between 5 and 6 PM, more and more people gathered to stand in front of our practitioners, who were demonstrating the exercises. Three of them kept yelling that we were America's servile followers. Occasionally, a few practitioners argued with them, but did not continue for long. More practitioners were spreading out and explaining Falun Gong to people around us.
Facing this unusual verbal abuse, some practitioners decided to take photos of the agitators. When those people found that we were taking photos of them, they cursed and left quickly.
The man with the cell phone was still sitting there. Our practitioners did not pay too much attention to him. Around 6:00 PM, we again found many people surrounding us. Among the crowd, some were maliciously insulting us while others taunted. We realized that the whole thing was planned. Most of the people there were not pedestrians; they were here to disrupt our Falun Dafa promotion.
There was a young woman shouting insults. She grabbed the flyers from our practitioners, tore them up, and threw them into the air. Some others threw our information board to the side. One practitioner set up his video camera again. Three or four big guys yelled and rushed over to grab his camera. The practitioners stopped them. In order to prevent the situation from getting worse, our practitioners decided to leave. At that time some warm-hearted people called the police. As soon as the police showed up, the agitators stopped misbehaving.
Falun Dafa Practitioners from NY
September 7, 2000
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