(Minghui.org) On July 20, 2012, Falun Gong practitioners held a rally on Kiener Plaza in downtown St. Louis to call attention to the brutal persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China.

Posters and banners help passers-by learn of the persecution in China

On July 20, 1999, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) initiated an unprecedented persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. In the past 13 years, practitioners have been protesting the persecution peacefully and exposing the CCP’s crimes.

 
Dr. Sa Geng exposes the CCP’s persecution with his personal experience

In the rally, Dr. Sa Geng talked about the suffering that he and his wife experienced in the persecution. His wife Guang Ge was arrested in 2001 for practicing Falun Gong. She was tortured to death in the Shibalihe Labor Camp in Henan two years later. Dr. Geng was imprisoned several times and tortured. Prison guards knocked out almost all of his teeth during force-feeding.

At the rally, a practitioner read support letters from Congress members Russ Carnahan and Todd Akin. Their letters condemned the CCP’s atrocities in violating human rights and commended Falun Gong practitioners’ peaceful efforts in protesting the persecution.