In spite of the celebratory aspects of the event, there was a sense of somberness and urgency that was reflected by many of the speakers, who called on the Chinese people who haven’t quit yet to seize the opportunity and draw a line between themselves and the communist party.

Yi Rong, chair of the Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP in New York, said he wanted to congratulate the 90 million awakened Chinese. Yi made reference to the recent events in Egypt and Tunisia, saying: “The dictatorships in North Africa appeared powerful, but were quickly dissolved by people’s protests. The people of North Africa have rung the funeral bell for the CCP and have given a good example for Chinese people to break away from the CCP’s autocracy.”

Yi also talked about the many tourist spots around the world where volunteers from the Service Centers help busloads of Chinese tourists to quit from the CCP and its affiliated youth groups.

“Some of them are high-ranking officials who chose to quit with their real names,” Yi said.

A few phone recordings were played of people from China who had called the Service Center to quit the CCP.

A man from Guangzhou, by the last name of Wang, said he had checked a dozen pay phones to find one where he could make an international call. He said he read the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party [an editorial series published by the Epoch Times in 2004, which inspired the quitting movement] a long time ago. He printed many copies of the book to give to people he knows. He said most of his friends and families have quit the CCP, and many people spontaneously urge others to quit.

Sound of Hope radio commentator, Lan Shu, said the vast trend of quitting the CCP is unprecedented in history.

“It took five years for the number of withdrawals to reach 60 million by 2009. In another year and three months, 30 million more have quit. The rate of people quitting the CCP is speeding up,” Lan said.

Ma Youzhi, a staff of the Northern California Service Center said despite the more than 400 mass protests that occur in China every day, the CCP has remained in power because it is much worse than other dictatorships.

“The CCP terrorizes people with violence and makes them give up their conscience out of fear,” Ma said.

Stone (an assumed name), a Falun Gong practitioner who just came from China, was once locked up in a Beijing detention center and in the Tiantanghe Women’s Forced Labor Camp because she would not denounce Falun Gong. Stone said that during her imprisonment she witnessed a guard chaining a practitioner’s hands and feet together. This person was forced to walk bent down at the waist, dragging around heavy chains around the clock.

Quitting from the communist party was also used by citizens in Eastern Europe before the fall of communism there.