Hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners rallied outside Ontario’s legislative building this week to mark 26 years since a large-scale appeal in Beijing, where thousands of adherents called for the freedom to practise their faith. The peaceful demonstration was soon followed by a widespread suppression of Falun Gong in China that continues today.
The Toronto rally was held on April 24, one day before the 26th anniversary of the April 25 “peaceful appeal” by Falun Gong practitioners in Beijing in 1999, when more than 10,000 adherents from across China assembled outside the appeals office to call for the release of 45 practitioners who had been arbitrarily detained by police in the eastern city of Tianjin.
They also called on the communist regime to lift a ban on Falun Gong books and to allow adherents a safe environment to practise their faith after incidents of authorities raiding practice sites, forcibly dispersing groups, and entering civilian residences without consent.
The demonstration was one of the largest China had seen in recent history, along with that of the Tiananmen Square student protest a decade earlier.
Han Yong, a Falun Gong practitioner who spoke at the Toronto rally, said he was a university student in China when he joined thousands of others in the 1999 appeal.
“At that time, there were no slogans, no banners, and no clamour. We just waited quietly, hoping to give feedback on the real situation of Falun Gong through the channel of appeals,” Yong said.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that combines meditative movements with moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. After its introduction in China in 1992, an estimated 70 million to 100 million people had taken up the practice by 1999.
Seeing the thousands of practitioners gathered outside the appeals office on April 25, 1999, senior officials agreed to hold talks with practitioners. By nightfall, the detained practitioners in Tianjin were released.
“We all felt very relieved,” Yong said, recalling the scene 26 years ago.
“When we left, we all consciously cleaned up the garbage and debris around us, and even the cigarette butts thrown on the ground by the police were cleaned up, because every Falun Gong practitioner follows the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, and require themselves to be a good person, a better person, and that he or she not cause trouble for others,” he added.
Amnesty International, a global human rights NGO, began sounding the alarm over the persecution of Falun Gong in China soon after it began.
“Some of those detained have been charged with crimes and sentenced after unfair trials, while others have been sent to labour camps without trial. New arrests and detentions continue to be reported every day.”
At the rally in Toronto, independent commentator Lai Jianping, formerly a lawyer in China, commended Falun Gong practitioners for standing up against Beijing’s authoritarian rule.
Canada Condemns Human Rights Abuses Against Falun Gong
Last December, the Canadian government sanctioned eight senior Chinese officials it said were involved in “grave human rights violations,” noting the measures were in response to the Beijing-led oppression of ethnic and religious minorities such as Uyghurs and Tibetans, and practitioners of Falun Gong.“We call on the Chinese government to put an end to this systematic campaign of repression and uphold its international human rights obligations.”
Falun Gong practitioners have also been targeted by foreign interference and transnational repression in Canada.
Those included letters to Canadian officials to discourage them from supporting the meditative practice, physical and verbal abuse against practitioners in Canada, and intimidation of practitioners’ relatives in China.
