NEW YORK CITY—As world leaders gathered in Manhattan at the United Nations for the 81st General Assembly on Sept. 22, nearly 100 Falun Gong practitioners rallied at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza to raise awareness of the ongoing persecution of the practice in China.

Some practitioners held banners that read “Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong” and “Truthfulness, Compassion, Tolerance,” while others did the tranquil exercises of the practice.

Falun Gong is a traditional spiritual discipline of meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has been persecuting the practice for the past 27 years.

Falun Gong practitioners demonstrate outside U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 22, 2026. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

Liu Jiying lived in Beijing when the persecution started in 1999. On Dec. 1 that year, she went to appeal to the authorities but was detained. Later in 2001, she and 10 other Falun Gong practitioners in her area were arrested during a gathering in a private home. She was sentenced to eight years in prison and released in 2009, she told The Epoch Times.

The persecution of Falun Gong in China caused Liu much hardship, leading to the breakup of her family. Her husband worked at the local prosecutor’s office; he was pressured to divorce her and did so not long after the persecution began.

Then, in 2016, Liu was arrested again. Her mother, anxious over her daughter’s well-being, stopped taking good care of herself and died just two months later.

Later that year, Liu was released on bond and managed to travel abroad, making her way to the United States.

Liu Jiying attends the demonstration at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in Manhattan on Sept. 22, 2026. (Nicholas Zifcak/The Epoch Times)

Despite the challenges, Liu is lighthearted; she laughs easily. She said she’s all right if she doesn’t think too deeply about everything she’s been through.

Even today, a close friend of Liu’s and a fellow practitioner from Beijing, Li Guiping, is still imprisoned in China. Liu said she joined the events at the U.N. on Sept. 22 to call for the release of all Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing still in police custody.

The CCP launched a nationwide persecution targeting the practice in July 1999. Since then, millions of practitioners have been detained inside prisons, labor camps, and other facilities; hundreds of thousands of them have been tortured; and thousands of them have been documented as killed, according to statistics collected by the New York state-based Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC).

Falun Gong practitioners outside U.N. headquarters in New York City on Sept. 22, 2026. (Samira Bouaou/The Epoch Times)

The pressure and persecution have extended to the United States, particularly over the past five years, according to the FDIC, with U.S. federal courts convicting six agents of the Chinese regime, including over assaulting practitioners in the New York City boroughs of Brooklyn and Queens.

In a recent survey, the FDIC documented more than 600 cases of transnational repression over a five-year period starting in 2020.

Oanh Le, originally from Vietnam, also joined the events in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza. Le said 10 of her family members practice Falun Gong.

It started with her father. Then her aunt took up the practice, then her cousins, and finally she and her sister started. She said she feels better physically and is trying to be a better person in her everyday life.

“I hope to share the truth [with] people and hope to stop that persecution,” Le told The Epoch Times.

Oanh Le hands out information about Falun Gong at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in New York City on Sept. 22, 2026. (Nicholas Zifcak/The Epoch Times)

The group plans to maintain a presence at the park through Sept. 25. It has also organized a parade of cars to drive around Manhattan with signs bearing the message “End the CCP.”