By The Epoch Times | Created at 2026-07-19 23:06:23 | Updated at 2026-08-05 04:20:01
2 weeks ago
Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for the end of the Chinese Communist Party’s 27 years of ongoing persecution against the spiritual practice, in New York City on July 19, 2026. Larry Dye/The Epoch Times
NEW YORK CITY—Several hundred Falun Gong practitioners gathered for a parade through the narrow streets and alleys of Manhattan’s Chinatown neighborhood of New York City July 19 to raise awareness about the persecution of the spiritual practice in China.
Beautiful breezy 80 degree temperatures brought out many shoppers and tourists visiting Chinatown. Many onlookers stopped to take video of the hundreds of parade attendees holding large banners who passed by in bright yellow shirts.
Soccer jersey-wearing World Cup fans were among the parade observers, with the World Cup Final set for 3 p.m. the same day, just miles away at MetLife Stadium in New Jersey.
Twenty-seven years ago, the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its systemic persecution campaign against Falun Gong, a peaceful spiritual discipline that teaches the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
The CCP sought to turn Chinese society against Falun Gong to undermine support among Chinese people in China and abroad, in the following years, practitioners around the world have spoken out.
Many shopkeepers came to their doors to observe the large gathering passing along their street as gentle, meditative music played on speakers accompanying the parade.
Lisa Liu, a parade participant, was one of a group of people who marched in the parade and at the same time demonstrated the Falun Gong exercises.
Holding the event in Chinatown, a conclave for people of her ethnicity, is a chance for the practitioners to demonstrate their faith and counteract the malign propaganda from the Chinese regime, she said.
“The Chinese government has really influenced the minds of all these Chinese people all over the world,” Jake Zocco said in an interview, echoing Liu. He and others were there to show that the practice is actually welcomed—China is the only place where one is not allowed to practice it, he said.
They are exercising religious freedom—what the United States is founded on, he said.
“The principles of the practice—truth, compassion, tolerance—it matters to everyone in the whole world,” he said, referring to the three tenets of the practice. “So the fact that that’s being persecuted really affects the whole world.”
On July 20, 1999, Falun Gong practitioners were arrested en masse, the beginning of a campaign that has resulted in untold numbers of prisoners of conscience tortured, brainwashed, and even killed for their organs.
In March and April 2026, Minghui.org, which collects evidence of the persecution directly from practitioners in China, received reports of 787 Falun Gong practitioners who were arrested or harassed for their faith.
Minghui collected reports of 124 practitioners persecuted to death in China in 2025, while another 4,803 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested or harassed in 2025, according to the website.
For Falun Gong practitioners, every aspect of their lives has been affected, from educational studies, to landing a job, to dealing with misunderstandings within their own family because of extensive CCP propaganda.
Nikou Bani contributed to this report.
