(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners held a rally in Philadelphia’s Chinatown on August 30, 2025, to congratulate the more than 450 million people who have quit the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) organizations, including the Youth League and the Young Pioneers. The State House of Representatives and the Philadelphia City Council issued proclamations to commemorate the event.
Practitioners displayed banners, distributed flyers, and collected signatures. Several speakers addressed the rally and described the CCP’s brutalities, including forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners.
Falun Gong practitioners held activities in Chinatown on August 30.
Proclamation from State House of Representatives
Mary Isaacson from the Pennsylvania House of Representatives issued a proclamation indicating this event, “celebrate over 450 million Chinese people who have courageously renounced their affiliations with the most brutal, repressive regimes in the world.”
Proclamation from State Representative Mary Isaacson
In her proclamation, Rep. Isaacson referred to the “Quit the CCP Global Movement” that has been in existence since 2004 as “the largest grassroots movement in the history of human civilization... Throughout the decades, the majority of Chinese people who had joined the CCP and its affiliated youth organizations were deceived or coerced into doing so. With the invaluable assistance of the Quit the Chinese Communist Party Movement, they have seen through the CCP’s decades of propaganda and have chosen a better future.”
Because the CCP has killed over 80 million of its citizens, “the CCP’s rule is the darkest and the most ridiculous page in Chinese history… Recently, the CCP has been escalating its transnational repression against Falun Gong, using death threats, lawfare, and manipulating of America media.”
The Pennsylvania House of Representatives “supports the Quit the CCP Global Movement, and offers congratulations and gratitude to the more than 450 million heroic people bringing about a new age of consciousness in China and around the world through peaceful movement.”
City Council Proclamation
Philadelphia City Councilor Mark Squilla also issued a proclamation to “pay tribute to the 450 million Chinese people who have courageously renounced their affiliations with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).”
Philadelphia City Councilor Mark Squilla issued a proclamation.
“Falun Gong emerged from the qigong movement in China in 1992, combining meditation, qigong exercises, and moral teachings rooted in Buddhist and Taoist traditions. Among the central concepts found in the teachings of Falun Gong is the existence of Virtue, and Karma. The former is generated through doing good deeds and suffering, while the latter is accumulated through doing wrong deeds… Spiritual elevation is achieved through the elimination of negative karma and the accumulation of virtue.”
Chinese People Renounce Their Memberships in the CCP Organizations
Forty-nine Chinese people announced their resignations from the CCP organizations during the event. As Councilor Squilla said, “The growing tide of withdrawals signifies the awakening of the Chinese people.”
Jessica Russo from Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) described the CCP’s organ harvesting from living Falun Gong practitioners and said that soon long after the CCP began to suppress Falun Gong in July 1999, organ transplants in China grew sharply. Overwhelming evidence indicates that Falun Gong practitioners are the major source of organs.
Jessica Russo from Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH)
A pro-CCP agent attempted to disrupt the rally. Santosh Krishnamurthy, a Falun Gong practitioner, said an Asian man riding a noisy motorcycle kept circling the rally, stepping up the throttle to drown out the speeches.
Alex Luchansky, who co-hosted the event, said this was one example of the CCP’s transnational repression. “This pro-CCP agent is interfering with our First Amendment rights. This is America, not China. But things like this do happen here.”
Public Support
Many passersby stopped to find out what was going on. This was the first time correctional officer Nijeea Cirwithen had heard about forced organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners and it upset her. “This is inhuman. No one should do something like this. I am glad so many people have quit the CCP organizations. I want to support you, too.”
Correctional officer Nijeea Cirwithen (left).
Police officer Maritza Bocceuti said it was great that 450 million people had severed ties with the CCP organizations, because that is important for the human rights situation in China. “I was shocked to hear about the forced organ harvesting because it is so frightening,” she said. She praised practitioners for holding the event because it was peaceful and it let people know what is happening in China.
Police officer Maritza Bocceuti and her husband Paul Bocceuti
Her husband Paul Bocceuti, a legal assistant, agreed the rally would help raise awareness of the CCP’s human rights abuses. He said that forced organ harvesting is dreadful and that it’s important for more people to know about it. He said that the CCP is a minority and sanctions by the international community will work.
Jen Buerk.
Jen Buerk, a business owner, said she’d heard about quitting the CCP: “If you don’t stop communism, it’s going to ruin the whole world. This movement is going to help America because the CCP could start with the Chinese people today and then come after the American people.”
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