Falun Gong: Let us in Chinese New Year parade

A Buddhism-inspired spiritual group suppressed in China says it's been barred from New York's Chinese New Year parade for years because organizers buckled under pressure from Chinese officials.

Today's parade in Manhattan's Chinatown is an annual spectacle of floats, musicians, magicians, acrobats and giant dragons dancing through neighborhood streets for hours. The Falun Gong have been barred from marching since 2008, when group members got into fights with other ethnic Chinese, parade organizers said.

"We've participated in the parade for years, till 2008," says Lucy Zhou, one of thousands of U.S. followers of Falun Gong, a movement that the Chinese government calls an evil cult.

Falun Gong was revived in the 1990s and attracted millions of followers. It involves traditional Chinese calisthenics and philosophy drawn from Buddhism, Taoism and the often-unorthodox teachings of founder Li Hongzhi, a former government grain clerk now in hiding. Volunteers organize the group, which says it has no political agenda.

China welcomed the group at first, but when adherents there grew to more than 70 million, communist officials cracked down on what had essentially become an opposition movement, said Levi Browde, a New York-based spokesman for the group.

The group says its members in China have been persecuted and tortured to death, and it won't take no for an answer in America.

But parade organizers say there are security issues linked to Falun Gong's participation.Fights between Falun Gong members and other ethnic Chinese New Yorkers during past parades are one reason for not including the group, said Steven Tin, executive director of New York's Better Chinatown Society, which helps organize the parade.

Browde countered that clashes in past years were isolated incidents quickly resolved by police, and that Falun Gong has participated peacefully in dozens of other Chinese events.

"New York is a hot spot, and security is just an excuse for keeping controversy away from the event," he said.

Tin declined to comment on Falun Gong's accusations that parade organizers feel pressured by the Chinese government. Repeated calls seeking comment from the Chinese Consulate in New York were not returned.

The parade in New York is privately organized but requires a city permit. So Falun Gong members have also contacted the City Council and the mayor's office to complain about being excluded from it, to little avail.

"The courts have repeatedly ruled that parades are a form of free speech," said mayoral spokeswoman Evelyn Erskine. "Just as we don't tell newspapers what they have to print, we don't tell parades who they have to include."

The group requested a permit to stage their own parade, but it was denied because the original parade was already approved for the same route.