(Minghui.org) Shen Yun Performing Arts held a press conference at New York City’s Lincoln Center on March 26, 2025, hours before its first performance in the venue, to expose Beijing’s systemic repression of the performing arts group.
Shen Yun’s artists and family members spoke about the harassment and threats they received from the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The conference host said that this was the first of its kind forum, which was held to expose the CCP’s infiltration and transnational repression of the company.
Over 1,500 Shen Yun artists and their family members signed a petition calling on the United States to investigate a foreign government’s malicious activities against the group on U.S. soil, and hold it responsible for these crimes.
On February 20 of this year, the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington DC received an email which contained bomb threats hours before the group’s opening night performance. Mark Thomas, assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Economics at La Salle University in Philadelphia, called it “absolutely abhorrent” and “uncalled for.”
American political consultant and author Roger Stone said in his recent article, “Shen Yun, whose tagline is 'China Before Communism,' offers a tantalizing display of pageantry that cuts at the heart of the CCP’s stranglehold on the thought process of the Chinese people. Shen Yun must always serve as inspiration for the Chinese people to make their country great again.”
Before Shen Yun’s first 2025 performance at the Lincoln Center, the company held a press conference on March 26, 2025 to expose the CCP’s bomb threats, lawsuits and smear campaign.
The CCP’s Bomb Threats and Infiltration
Leeshai Lemish, Shen Yun’s emcee and host of the conference, introduced Shen Yun’s purpose and development over the years. He said that over the past 18 years, Shen Yun has developed into eight ensembles and put on 74,000 shows in front of over 11 million audience members. The company is dedicated to reviving traditional Chinese culture, and telling the world about the CCP’s persecution of spiritual groups such as Falun Gong. The shows has received excellent reviews worldwide.
Lemish said that for the past 18 years, Shen Yun has been facing the CCP’s attacks and efforts to sabotage the performances, and the situation escalated in recent years.
The tactics include using “united front” organizations and agents to pressure theaters and government officials to cancel performances or withdraw their sponsorship; the CCP funds mainstream media and social media celebrities to spread negative narratives to mislead the public; file frivolous lawsuits to hinder Shen Yun’s operations, and mobilize spies to monitor and damage Shen Yun’s buses on multiple occasions. Since last year, the agents made physical threats against the artists, and made bomb threats against theaters that put on the shows.
Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, said that the Center has documented over 150 cases of the CCP and its related organizations’ attempts to smear Shen Yun and sabotage its performances.
In 2025 alone, threats have been made against Shen Yun in the U.S., the U.K., France and Taiwan since it started this season’s tour.
In the past several months, certain mainstream media published reports that misrepresent Shen Yun’s company ethics and the faith of its artists—the content is in line with the CCP’s slanderous propaganda in its past 26 years of persecuting Falun Gong (Falun Dafa).
1,500 People Call to Investigate the CCP’s Threats Against Shen Yun
At the conference the host presented a petition with over 1,500 signatures. The petition was launched in December 2024 in the wake of rising hate narratives against Shen Yun in the U.S. Many who signed said they abhorred what they considered an attack on their values, work, and way of life.
In the petition it states that the “gross distortions and false narratives” were “echoing through mainstream media,” bolstered in part by “malicious calls for government inquiries.
“We are concerned about the beloved American company that brings hope and joy to millions. We are concerned about Beijing’s ability to manipulate and control our society.”
Shen Yun artist Lee Rubacek spoke at the conference about a narrative in an article of a mainstream newspaper, “It says that artists were forced to perform even after injury. I was injured last year, and the company had me stop performing right away, allowed me to rest, and offered to get me an MRI examination at a hospital. I was back on stage three months later, and performed at the Lincoln Center. My experience is completely opposite of the narrative in the media.”
The petition calls for a Justice Department investigation into the “foreign malign influence campaign” and asks Congress and the President to protect U.S. companies from Chinese suppressive operations.
Falun Dafa Information Center: These Threats Are a U.S. National Security Issue
Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, said at the conference, “We have paid close attention to the CCP’s human rights violations for the past 25 years. Recently we have been focused on its transnational repression.”
According to Browde, a core part of the CCP’s activities is to sabotage and eliminate Shen Yun and Falun Gong. “I want to emphasize that this is beyond threats to overseas Falun Gong communities and Shen Yun, I think this is a serious threat to our national security,” he said.
Levi Browde, executive director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, speaks at the press conference on March 26, 2025 at the Lincoln Center, New York City.
Browde quoted US General Robert Spalding on his testimony at the US Congress in 2024 and said that the CCP uses the US media to shut down criticism of its human rights abuses. “One good example is its attack of Falun Gong – [the CCP] has basically convinced the university system in the United States that Falun Gong practitioners are a brainwashed cult. It’s done the same thing to our media institutions.”
Browde also said that the Information Center learned from many sources that in the past year someone in the CCP’s highest political circle directed the intensification of the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners and Shen Yun outside of China.
Professor Condemns CCP’s Bomb Threats and Calls it “Abhorrent”
Mark Thomas, assistant professor at the Department of Political Science and Economics at La Salle University in Philadelphia, attended several Shen Yun shows. (Photo Courtesy of The Epoch Times)
Professor Mark Thomas has seen Shen Yun’s performances and described them as “very peaceful” and “very healing.”
Thomas said in an interview a few days before the conference that, “The bomb threats that China did against the Kennedy Center, and the threats it made earlier this year, are just absolutely abhorrent. And whether it’s directly through the Chinese government, through the Ministry of State Security or the People’s Liberation Army, they co-opted to do it. What the Chinese government’s doing with these bomb threats is … just uncalled for,” he said.
“Art is ... one great way of reaching people,” he said. “It’s one of the few peaceful things we have left, so it’s important.
“Shen Yun points out the evils of the Chinese government and the tortures that it does,” he said.
He added that Shen Yun brings across a wonderful message, “a message of hope in many cases, and it shows good conquering evil.”
American Author Says Shen Yun Will Inspire Chinese People
Roger Stone is an American political strategist, speaker, and author. (Photo public domain)
Roger Stone wrote an article about Shen Yun on March 15, 2025. The following are excerpts from his article “Shen Yun Must Be Protected to Make China Great Again” on his platform Stone Cold Truth.
“Although President Trump’s tariffs and tough trade policy regarding China are working wonders to derail the CCP’s rise as the top world power, the only way that the ruthless communist regime in the Far East will be truly defeated is by changing the hearts and minds of the people, and no entity is more successful on that front than Shen Yun.
“Shen Yun, a global sensation whose tagline is 'China Before Communism,' offers a tantalizing display of song, dance, art and pageantry that cuts at the heart of the CCP’s stranglehold on the thought process of the Chinese people.
“Communism is a political system that crushes the beauty of the soul. If communists allow human expression to flourish, individuals will quickly transcend the bounds of their absurd and envy-driven leftist ideology. This is why all communist regimes must stifle the creative impulses of the people so individuals are robbed of their humanity and subjugated into vacuous automatons who live only to serve the autocratic government.
“Shen Yun shows the Chinese people can be far more than the system that is currently being imposed upon them. They show what China used to be before the CCP gained its stranglehold over public and private life. China had a beautiful culture where a proud people venerated their traditions, their native religions and their people ahead of the state – as it should be.
“The CCP understands the wonderfully subversive effect of Shen Yun and recognizes them as a major threat to their power. This is why they have initiated a worldwide crackdown on Shen Yun and the religious movement that inspired them.
“The demonization of Shen Yun is not unlike what President Trump had to undergo for years with the media and government, with their foreign backers conspiring under cover of darkness to thwart his righteous agenda. The plot against Trump failed, and the plot against Shen Yun will fail too.
“Bringing Shen Yun to the White House for a presentation would be a clever way for America to thumb her nose at CCP repression, while making it abundantly clear that Shen Yun is a cultural staple that will never be snuffed out by a jealous regime. Shen Yun must always serve as inspiration for the Chinese people to make their country great again.”
The audience warmly embraced Shen Yun’s first performance at the David Koch Theater at Lincoln Center on the evening of March 26, 2025.
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