SAN FRANCISCO—Hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners from the San Francisco Bay Area meditated in Harry Bridges Plaza on April 22. This was the first in a series of events held to commemorate the 24th anniversary of a peaceful appeal made in Beijing on April 25, 1999.
Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a Chinese spiritual discipline that includes meditative exercises and moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It was first taught in public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in China in 1992.
In the 1990s, the number of Falun Gong practitioners in China grew quickly due to its health benefits. However, in 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began persecuting Falun Gong practitioners for their faith.
Early in 1999, the CCP police in the city of Tianjin arrested 45 Falun Gong practitioners who were protesting about an article a magazine had published that slandered Falun Gong unfairly.
Practitioners tried to explain the matter to the authorities, and the police directed them to different offices until they ended up at the Beijing Zhongnanhai government office, practitioner Matthew Kang told NTD, a sister media of The Epoch Times.
The practitioners appealed for three things: a free environment in which to practice their faith, the release of the 45 practitioners who were detained in the city of Tianjin at the time, and for all Falun Gong books to be legal in China.
At the time, an estimated 70 to 100 million people in China were practicing Falun Gong. About 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners from throughout mainland China gathered outside Zhongnanhai for an appeal.
Media worldwide praised them for their courageous behavior and peacefulness. The event has been commemorated every year since then by overseas Falun Gong practitioners.
Rongji Zhu, then prime minister, talked with some representatives selected from the protesters and reached a peaceful agreement, and the 10,000 practitioners were dismissed. However, then CCP leader Jiang Zemin went ahead and initiated an illegal persecution to try to eradicate Falun Gong.
The persecution has been going on ever since. Practitioners throughout China have been imprisoned, harassed, and killed for their faith.
Persevering Under Persecution
Many attendees at this year’s commemorative events had experienced persecution in China before they escaped their homeland and came to the United States.Falun Gong practitioner Sky Wei left China four years ago via a student visa, and hasn’t been able to go back to see his family since. Wei told NTD that his grandmother was sent to a labor camp for two years, suffered severe health damage, and died three years ago due to organ failure.
“The police in the labor camp, they put cold water [on] people. They also don’t let people eat; they don’t let people sleep,” Wei said.
His father was also thrown into the labor camp, and it “caused him some health issues after he got out,” Wei said.
Yolanda Yao, Ph.D., was incarcerated for years and was forced to watch videos that smeared Falun Gong.
“They just want you to abandon your belief,” she said. “If you refuse to do that, they will [make] you to do some forced labor.”
Yao was forced to do farm work in scorching hot weather. When she was finally released in 2013, she escaped to the United States.
Her parents were also imprisoned and harassed for practicing Falun Gong. They finally came to the United States to reunite with their daughter this February.
Despite the CCP’s brutal persecution, adherents still choose to keep practicing the five sets of meditative exercises and following the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.
Beneficial for Body and Mind
Falun Gong is now practiced in countries all over the world, and its texts have been translated into many languages. Practitioners commonly report significant physical and mental health benefits.“A lot of people, they’ve been cured. Their diseases are gone, and they’re more healthy,” practitioner Ronnie Hui told NTD.
A tourist named Ercilia from Australia told NTD that she felt relaxed when she learned from a practitioner how to do the third Falun Gong exercise.
Vijay Kumar learned about Falun Gong just two years ago.
He told NTD: “It’s far more than just health and wellness. It teaches you how to be a good person in every aspect of your life.”
Kumar said he tried out weightlifting, yoga, and other things to gain health and wellness, but he never got there until he learned Falun Gong.
“It’s really when we improve our heart, improve our mind, and cleanse ourselves [that] health, good health, will naturally just follow; and I learned that from Falun Dafa,” Kumar said.
He thinks Falun Gong is beneficial to the whole world, and he said it tells us “we really must turn towards goodness and improve ourselves if we are to foresee a better future for ourselves.”
On the night of April 23, Falun Gong practitioners gathered outside the San Francisco Chinese Consulate for a candlelight vigil to commemorate those who have been killed in the persecution.
