Remembering 25 Years of Persecution

Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s 25-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice in Washington on July 11, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

July 20 marks a horrific event: the beginnings of the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) nationwide repression campaign of the spiritual practice Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, teaches the principles of truth, compassion, and forbearance, and five meditative exercises. For seeking to abide by these principles, the estimated 70 million to 100 million practitioners in China are subjected to illegal arrests and detention, brainwashing and torture, and even live organ harvesting. The grisly practice was first revealed by whistleblowers who shared their stories with The Epoch Times in 2006, including a woman who testified that her former husband, a transplant doctor, removed the corneas of healthy, living Falun Gong practitioners. Organs harvested from living prisoners of conscience fuel the country’s billion-dollar transplant market.

The persecution is ongoing and has continued undeterred since 1999.

This July 20 marks 25 years, meaning an entire generation has grown up under persecution.

Livia was 11 when the persecution began. She and her parents regularly did the Falun Gong exercises in a public park, where “many government officials knew us and were quite friendly to us.”

Overnight, that all changed. Media in China, all state-run, slandered Falun Gong as “evil,” and people who brought stereos to parks to play the exercise music for small gatherings were suddenly arrested.

Livia’s parents would be sent to various labor camps and detention facilities over the years at least 10 separate times.

For 16-year-old Meimei, her mother’s arrest was a rude awakening. The phone rang and, confused, she picked it up. Her mother hadn’t woken her up for school that morning and now she was running late.

“Your mother was arrested for doing Falun Gong exercises in a park. Ask your father to bring 5,000 yuan to the police station tomorrow or you can figure out the consequences yourself,” said the man on the other line.

Her father, a corrections officer, and an uncle who was in a financial position to help would make calls, and bribes, trying to find out where exactly Meimei’s mother was detained. Eventually, Meimei alone was allowed a 15-minute visit, and her mother was released two weeks later, covered in black bruises.

Yu was 13 years old when it happened, and “it was like the heaven and earth were turned upside down.” She later stayed in a high school dorm room with nine other girls, where she tried to hide her Falun Gong materials under her mattress. When a dormmate asked her to get rid of them, Yu tried to explain Falun Gong was being falsely portrayed by the authorities, which sentenced a family friend to 12 years in prison for believing in truth, compassion, and forbearance. Her explanation was met with laughter.

“Denouncing” Falun Gong had become a national exercise. People were required by schools and workplaces to repeat the CCP’s propaganda.

Undeterred, Yu continued to try to tell her classmates what Falun Gong really was. In English class, they were asked to talk about a “hero,” and Yu spoke about the imprisoned family friend. The class fell silent. Then, the class Communist Youth League representative recited the CCP’s propaganda.

To Yu’s surprise, when she returned to her dorm, one of the girls shared her support. “Yu, if you get arrested because of this, I’ll go rescue you!” Yu’s courage had kindled her own.

Yu told The Epoch Times, “bringing up Falun Gong in China really reveals people’s true character.”

The CCP’s persecution campaign has ripple effects far beyond its borders. In fact, the international response to the transnational repression of Falun Gong has shown the regime where its propaganda machine is successful, according to researchers speaking at a recent Hudson Institute panel on July 17.

“It’s a propaganda war,” said Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute.

At a press briefing on July 18, a State Department spokesperson said the department is watching the CCP’s use of misinformation and disinformation, as well as the regime’s human rights abuses.

The State Department “won’t hesitate to take appropriate actions” against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) continued persecution of the spiritual group Falun Gong, said principal deputy spokesperson Vedant Patel.

In 2021 and 2022, Secretary of State Antony Blinken sanctioned two CCP officials for human rights violations in persecuting Falun Gong, and the Department of Justice has also charged two suspected CCP agents for their role in trying to help the regime “topple” the practice in the United States.

Congress has taken action as well. Last month, the House passed the Falun Gong Protection Act, which would sanction individuals who participate in the regime’s forced organ harvesting.

It also prohibits U.S. cooperation with China in the organ transplantation field so long as the CCP remains in power. According to the Hudson Institute’s  Center for Religious Freedom, American institutions have trained at least 344 of China’s transplant doctors.

In 2019, an independent people’s tribunal unanimously concluded that the CCP has been killing prisoners of consciousness to harvest their organs “on a significant scale,” with Falun Gong practitioners being the main victims of this crime.