On the bustling thoroughfare of Chinese immigrants that is Main Street in Flushing, Queens, countless people hand out fliers for massage parlors, calling cards, English classes, money-wiring stores and other services.
But one group of regulars that offers fliers from its daily spot is not commercially minded. Its message is an ideological one: to disparage Falun Gong, the spiritual and meditation movement founded in China. It’s a movement, Falun Gong organizers say, that has found its largest following outside Asia in Flushing.
The group denounces Falun Gong as a cult, and it incorporates this charge into its name: the Chinese Anti-Cult World Alliance. The alliance set up a small folding table in the summer of 2008 on Main Street near Sanford Avenue, not far from the numerous tables staffed by Falun Gong volunteers who hand out literature lambasting the Chinese Communist Party and the Chinese government, which has banned and persecuted Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa.
For two years, the two factions have staked out their turf on Main Street like rival gangs, and they have waged a bitter ideological battle nearly daily for hearts and minds. They have created a scaled-down version of the tension between Falun Gong and the Chinese government.
Falun Gong members are convinced that this opposition group is an arm of the Chinese government and that its members are working as political operatives to oppress Falun Gong here.
“They are secret agents for the Chinese Communist Party,” said Rong Yi, 45, a Falun Gong organizer in Flushing. “They are puppets for…