Using Her Newfound Freedom to Help Others Find Their Own

Hundreds marched through the streets of Brooklyn, New York on Sunday (March 27). It was to celebrate the 91 million Chinese people who’ve publicly renounced the Chinese Communist Party or CCP. For Zhang Lianying, being at the parade was a special moment. This time last year she was suffering abuse at a labor camp in China because of her beliefs.

[Zhang Lianying, Persecuted in China]:
“At the Masanjia labor camp, the most cruel torture was when they would stretch you out by your limbs. After a year, my arms could not bend.”

The parade on Sunday was part of what’s known as the Tuidang movement. It literally means to “Quit the party”—that is, the Chinese Communist Party. The movement started in 2005, after The Epoch Times newspaper published an editorial documenting the CCP’s crimes against the Chinese people.

Since then, volunteers —many who’ve been victims of the CCP’s crimes—began urging Chinese people worldwide to withdraw from the CCP and its affiliated organizations. That’s why Zhang participated in the parade. As a Falun Gong practitioner, she experienced firsthand the brutalities of the CCP, in its ongoing persecution of the spiritual practice.

Zhang recounted her last arrest in 2008, just before the Beijing Olympics. Police took her as she was shopping with her young daughter.

[Zhang Lianying, Persecuted in China]:
“They were very barbaric when they took me. Right in front of my four-year-old daughter, they put a black hood over my head and dragged me by the throat. It was raining and all the groceries fell to the ground. My daughter was scared and crying, “Mama!” They didn’t care. They ransacked my house, took my things—all without any documentation.”

Zhang and her family fled China and came to the United States in January this year. Now free, Zhang says she wants to help others to renounce the Chinese Communist Party.

[Zhang Lianying, Persecuted in China]:
“Before I came to the U.S., I saw pictures of [Falun Gong] practitioners holding up anti-persecution banners on the Minghui website. I cried for a long time. I was able to leave China alive because of the support of many practitioners and kind people. Without overseas support, we might not be here today. So I’m very grateful, and I want to do what I can to support [people who] withdraw from the wicked [Chinese Communist] Party, and let more people know the truth.”