NEW YORK, New York — Falun Gong practitioners and members of the greater New York Chinese community are preparing to hold a large-scale parade through Brooklyn’s Eighth Avenue Chinatown on Sunday, Aug. 23, with organizers expecting over 2,000 participants.

According to organizers, the parade will be divided into three main sections. The first will showcase traditional Chinese culture and Falun Gong’s meditative exercises. The second will call attention to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Gong, which began in July 1999, as well as accounts of transnational repression targeting practitioners overseas.

The third section will highlight the “Tuidang” movement, which encourages Chinese people to renounce their affiliations with the CCP and its affiliated Communist Youth League and Young Pioneers organizations. Organizers say more than 460 million people have submitted declarations withdrawing from the organizations, while more than 5.38 million people worldwide have signed the End CCP petition.

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Parade route and schedule

Participants are scheduled to assemble along Eighth Avenue between 66th and 68th streets at 11 a.m. The parade will begin at noon, proceeding north along Eighth Avenue before concluding near 43rd Street at approximately 2 p.m.

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The Tian Guo Marching Band will lead the procession, which is also expected to feature waist drummers, dragon and lion dances, traditional Japanese-style drumming, decorated floats, and other displays. Organizers are inviting members of the public to watch the procession from along the Eighth Avenue route.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice rooted in the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. It was introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in 1992. The practice incorporates meditation exercises as well as moral teachings to elevate one’s moral standing.

Despite being peaceful in nature, the CCP launched a brutal campaign to eradicate the practice in 1999 after seeing its rapid rise in popularity as a threat to its authoritarian regime. Since then, thousands of practitioners have perished at the hands of Chinese police, with many today still undergoing routine monitoring, arbitrary travel bans, and arrests.

Original article
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