Philadelphia officials on Tuesday raised the flag of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) at City Hall.

The ceremony marked the CCP’s Oct. 1 National Day and involved a co-organizer with ties to Beijing’s regime, according to The Epoch Times. The event reportedly whitewashes a violent legacy of mass killings, religious crackdowns and cultural destruction that began when Mao Zedong seized power in 1949.

Outside the event, protesters from the Tibetan Association of Philadelphia demanded the city take down the banner.

“The red flag of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) is not a symbol of culture; it is the emblem of a brutal, totalitarian regime,” Tsering Jurme, president of the local association, told The Epoch Times. “This regime is responsible for the persecution and murder of millions, the destruction of thousands of monasteries, and the ongoing cultural genocide of my people in Tibet and the Uyghurs in Xinjiang. To fly their flag here in our Philadelphia city hall is to legitimize terror and betray the dissidents who seek freedom.”

Campaign for Uyghurs also denounced the event in a formal letter to Mayor Cherelle Parker, the outlet reported. Its founder, Rushan Abbas—whose sister, Dr. Gulshan Abbas, was sentenced to 20 years in a Chinese prison—said the flag represents mass surveillance, forced sterilizations, and the silencing of dissent across China.

Elected officials at both the state and federal level blasted the city for hosting the event. Republican Pennsylvania state Sen. Doug Mastriano called the decision “a terrible mistake,” pointing to the CCP’s decades-long record of persecution and the deaths of millions during the Cultural Revolution.

On social media, Mastriano wrote: “The cradle of liberty flying the banner of tyranny.”

Republican Michigan Rep. John Moolenaar, who chairs the House Select Committee on the CCP, also urged the mayor to reverse the decision, saying it’s a disgrace to the values enshrined in the Constitution.

Philadelphia held a similar flag-raising in 2019, and other liberal cities, including San Francisco and New York, have done the same.

A Daily Caller News Foundation investigation found that the CCP’s reach extends beyond symbolic flag-raisings, with party members enrolled at U.S. universities setting up overseas party branches backed by their Chinese alma maters. These branches, unregistered as official student groups, have appeared at Oklahoma State, the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the University of Colorado-Denver, with members later moving on to other U.S. institutions.

President Donald Trump said in August that allowing 600,000 Chinese nationals to study in the U.S. would benefit American colleges and bring in “hundreds of millions of dollars.” But several Republican lawmakers pushed back, with Republican Arizona Rep. Eli Crane calling the plan a “massive national security threat.”

Content created by The Daily Caller News Foundation is available without charge to any eligible news publisher that can provide a large audience. For licensing opportunities of our original content, please contact licensing@dailycallernewsfoundation.org