(Minghui.org) Following a grand march on April 25, Falun Gong practitioners in New York held a rally in Flushing on the same day to commemorate the peaceful demonstration in Beijing on April 25, 1999.
The rally also congratulated 200 million Chinese who chose to quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). This movement, also known as Tuidang, started in 2004 when the Epoch Times newspaper firstpublished the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party.
Practitioners at the rally congratulate 200 million people who have withdrawn their memberships in the CCP.
Yu Chunguang, a high school teacher who came to the U.S. six months ago, shared how his attitude towards Falun Gong had changed. “Falun Gong practitioners and their principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance represent traditional values and the foundation of human society. Therefore, how a person views and responds to the ongoing persecution in China reflects whether he or she can act on conscience.”
“Quitting the CCP is the most benevolent way to dissolve the most vicious regime,” Yu continued. “We have to take a stance on this issue, because, between good and evil, there is no middle ground.”
“A Process of Spiritual Awareness and Spiritual Awakening”
Charles Lee, spokesperson for the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, said the Tuidang movement is accelerating. “When the Nine Commentaries was first published, the number of people quitting the party every day was relatively small. Later, it gained speed and became about 50,000 per day. Now it is more than 100,000 per day.”
The chairwoman of the center, Yi Rong, considered this moment a process of spiritual awareness and spiritual awakening. “More and more people begin to realize the nature of the CCP and Marxism. By relating history and their personal experience to what is described in the Nine Commentaries, Chinese people came to understand the severity of the harm communism has brought to humankind. That's why they embrace their conscience and choose to cut ties with the Party.”
She specifically thanked Falun Gong practitioners, along with other volunteers inside China and overseas, for their hard work.
The chairwoman of the Global Service Center for Quitting the Chinese Communist Party, Yi Rong, speaks at the rally.
Wang Zhiyuan, coordinator of the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), said the suppression of practitioners in China was “a nationwide systematic genocide by the CCP.” He said the organization's website lists a large amount of evidence, testimonies, and voice recordings related to the persecution. The state-sanctioned harvesting of organs from living imprisoned practitioners, in particular, is one of the worst.
He called on more Chinese to separate themselves from the Party.
Charles Li (right, spokesperson for the center) and Wang Zhiyuan (coordinator of WOIPFG) speak at the rally.
Damon Noto, spokesman of Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH), reviewed the arduous work of raising awareness of the organ harvesting atrocities. “I was here eight years ago talking about organ harvesting. At that time, many people did not believe it, because they did not know people in China were being killed for their organs, which were then sold in the black market.”
Through the continued work of volunteers, the situation has changed. “Earlier this year, China's former Vice Health Minister Huang Jiefu admitted that over the past ten years, China's organ transplant system has been corrupt and disgusting. Recently, he also admitted that the military hospitals in China have been playing an important role in this.”
“What is the significance of this?” Noto explained, “Those military hospitals have access to prisons and forced labor camps like no other hospitals in China have. All these point to the fact that they [CCP officials] have been using prisoners of conscience, these innocent people, for their organs over the past ten years. They were killed for their organs unjustly and without trials.”
The public worldwide are paying more attention to this issue. One example is Human Harvest, a documentary that describes the illegal organ harvesting in China. When it film won the prestigious Peabody Award earlier this month, filmmaker Leon Lee hoped that “the attention this film receives can help shine a light on the terrible crime of organ harvesting.”
A Path Towards the Future
In his speech, Yu Chunguang, a high school teacher who had recently moved from China, said he had been brainwashed by theories of communism as early as four years old. After joining the CCP in college and later beginning to work as a teacher, he continued to pass the brainwashing to his students.
“It was Falun Gong practitioners who helped me to overcome the internet censorship,” he said. He was thus able to learn the real story of the Cultural Revolution, the Tiananmen Square Massacre in 1989, and now the persecution of Falun Gong.
“Especially after reading the Nine Commentaries, I have a deeper understanding of Chinese communism and the harm it has brought to the society. I was really ashamed of what I have done in the past.” Finally, his entire family decided to quit the Party on November 19, 2014, the tenth anniversary of the Nine Commentaries being published.
Lu Dong, a democracy activist, said that many people and groups have been persecuted by the CCP in the past. “But none of them had the courage and determination to say no to the Party. We now know that only by disintegrating the Communist Party can China advance toward prosperity and renaissance.”
For those who have yet quit the Party, Lu suggested that they are either apathetic to the atrocities committed by the Party or afraid of the regime. “But neither one will do you any good. As long as you are still affiliated with the Party, when the regime is doomed, you will sink with it.”
Zhai Wendao, a spectator and graduate of the renowned Tsinghua University, said, “I support freedom of belief and admire Falun Gong's perseverance. Both you and I know that China will be better without communism.”
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Category: April 25 Events
