By Alexander Dworkowitz
Tempers flared at a meeting last week as organizers of Flushing's Lunar New Year Parade debated whether or not to allow the Falun Gong to march.
After hours of discussion on interpreting the parade's rules, the parade committee postponed making a decision on whether or not to grant the controversial group the right to be in the parade until Thursday – just two days before Saturday's event.
This year a group on the organizing committee has maintained that the practitioners broke the rules in 2002 and should be kicked out of the event. At last Thursday's meeting at the Sheraton LaGuardia East Hotel, committee member Michael Chu played a videotape in which Falun Gong practitioners were shown passing out fliers in last year's parade.
Chu, the publisher of the weekly newspaper Asian American Times, said distributing fliers was against the parade rules and therefore the group should be kept out of the parade, one of the largest events in Queens.
Chu is part of a group of 20 organizations called the Council of Chinese-American Associations. Most of the members of the CCAA are from mainland China, although Chu is Taiwanese. The council has recently gained influence in the organizing committee, with 13 of those on the parade committee also in the council, Chu said.
Chu, who would not discuss his personal feelings toward the Falun Gong, said he thought they brought unwanted politics to the parade, saying the committee needed to keep up “standards.”
“Lunar New Year is supposed to be all the Chinese forgetting about politics for one day, just one day, just simply celebrating the culture, the traditions,” Chu said in an interview this week.
Although upset with the leadership of the parade over the last several years, Chu and others on the CCAA decided earlier this month to take an active role in this year's parade and joined the committee.
After allowing the Falun Gong to march in years past, last year's parade committee decided to ban the group. At the last minute, another group in the parade invited the Falun Gong to join, and they marched in the parade.
Chinese President Jiang Zemin has outlawed the Falun Gong, an exercise-based spiritual movement, in his country. Over the last several years, hundred of Falun Gong practitioners have been jailed, tortured or killed in China, according to the human rights group Amnesty International.
Falun Gong practitioners contend the debate over the parade is an example of their persecution spreading to the United States.
Jianfeng Zhou, an Elmhurst Falun Gong practitioner who attended last week's meeting, said Chu was using the rule about fliers as a convenient way to keep the group out.
“I think this is not the issue,” said Zhou.
Zhou and other Falun Gong practitioners have insisted that the Chinese Consulate is behind the drive against the group, a charge officials with the consulate deny.
“They are trying to influence our community by exporting Chinese policy,” she said.
The pleas of Zhou and other Falun Gong practitioners have not fallen on deaf ears. In a letter sent to parade organizers, Heather Pool, a specialist with the city Commission on Human Rights, said her organization might look into the controversy.
“The Commission on Human Rights is concerned that they are being excluded because of their religious beliefs and practices,” Pool wrote. “If this is proven to be true, an investigation could be initiated into why practitioners of Falun Gong were excluded from what appears to be a public accommodation open to all other members of New York City's Asian community.”
Fred Fu, president of the Flushing Chinese Business Association and co-chair of the parade's Chinese committee, said he hoped a compromise would be reached at the next meeting, just two days before the Feb. 1 parade.
“Celebrate, but don't promote,” Fu said of the Falun Gong.
Councilman John Liu (D-Flushing) said he was not aware of any discriminatory rules by organizers.
“I think the organizers of the parade have a right to establish rules as long as those rules don't discriminate unfairly,” he said. “Any organization, as long as they follow those rules, should be allowed to march.”
Reach reporter Alexander Dworkowitz by e-mail at Timesledger@aol.com or call 229-0300, Ext. 141.
