Thousands Parade in New York Highlighting Faith and Persecution

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Falun Gong practitioners celebrate World Falun Dafa Day while urging an end to the persecution in China.

NEW YORK—Thousands of people in blue jackets popped up in the heart of the Big Apple for a parade on May 10 just after a misty rain.

It’s an annual tradition. Fairies holding lotus flowers, a float ferrying people in ancient Chinese attire, a Western-style marching band, and Chinese waist drummers. They marched through the streets for about 1.5 hours, in step with sounds and melodies that drew inspiration from a China long ago.

The New York parade marks one of the largest of its kind in the world to commemorate World Falun Dafa Day, which also marks the anniversary of the spiritual discipline’s introduction to the public 31 years ago.

It’s a day that mixes joy and sorrow.

The practice drew an estimated 70 to 100 million people to it in China in the 1990s; its centers around meditative exercises and the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. In China, Falun Gong has been severely persecuted at the hands of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) since 1999.

During the nearly 24 years of brutal persecution, an untold number of Falun Gong practitioners have been killed through torture, slave labor, and forced organ harvesting. Survivors in China—and those who practice in more than 100 countries around the world—say the communist persecution can’t make them bend their will.

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In the crowd was Wang Huijuan, a Chinese language teacher in New York. Her sister-in-law, music teacher Li Chunyuan, has spent weeks in Chinese detention over her faith.

Her alleged wrongdoing was “singing at home.”

“It sounds ridiculous, right?” she told The Epoch Times. The police, while conducting a house raid, told Ms. Li’s husband: “Do you know that she sings at home everyday? We’ve been monitoring her for a long time.”

Wang Huijuan takes part in a parade to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day while calling for an end of the persecution in China, in New York City, on May 10, 2024. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Not that there was anything wrong with the songs, Ms. Wang said. Ms. Li, who has a sonorous voice, sings songs with lyrics that celebrate Chinese traditions, such as the lunar Chinese New Year, that “brings people hope,” said Ms. Wang.

Ms. Li’s school also demoted her in 2022 to logistical work in a bid to force her to give up her belief.

“It’s really a shame,” she said. The CCP, she said, has chosen to be the opposite of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

“The more you strive to be a good person, the more they go after you.”

People look on as Falun Gong practitioners take part in a parade to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day while calling for an end of the persecution in China, in New York City, on May 10, 2024. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Many others at the parade shared a similar sentiment.

Julia Baniasadi, who works at a medical center, began practicing Falun Gong in 1998 when she was 20. Her severe back pain has since disappeared. As a mother of three, she described the values that the practice teaches as an anchor that keeps her family grounded.

Children nowadays are always on their phones or playing video games, she said.

“They don’t know how to play outside. They don’t know how to interact with people,” she told The Epoch Times. Younger adults, meanwhile, “don’t have any work ethics anymore.”

“When I see my children, then I see a big difference. I raised them to be independent and to make the right decisions in life.”