(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners from all over the world hold rallies and other activities of various scale to protest the 15-year persecution by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) around July 20 every year.
On July 17, 2014, Falun Gong practitioners from the United States and other countries gathered in the U.S. capital and held a rally, a parade and a candlelight vigil to protest the ongoing brutal persecution.
The rally was held on Capitol Hill at noon. According to a Radio Free Asia (RFA) report, influential congressmen and representatives from human right groups and religious groups gave speeches at the rally in support of Falun Gong.
Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, Representative for California's 48th congressional district, said in his speech, “People around the world need to stand together with one concept. That is we respect each other's right, either to worship God or not to worship God in their own choosing. That should be one thing that unite all decent people of the world. And that's what we are saying today. Thank you for sending that message! Falun Gong has been in the forefront of this fight. God bless you for that! You are not only complaining what was done to Falun Gong, you are demanding the human rights for people in China and throughout the world. I'm with you. I stand with you. We will see the day, when these dictators, these gangster, and the corrupt people who run the government in China no longer oppress you, no longer stand for their oppression of people who believe in God.”
Falun Gong has been spread to more than one hundred countries around the world since it was introduced in China in 1992. More than 100 million people of different ethnicities practice Falun Gong. The Chinese Communist regime started to suppress Falun Gong in late July 1999.
Falun Gong practitioner Mr. Tian told an RFA reporter that the activities were aimed to support Falun Gong practitioners in China, to call for the international community to support Falun Gong's fight for their human rights, and to support the Chinese people who have quit the CCP.
Mr. Tian said, “Since the persecution hasn't stopped, we will continue to protest, not just protest in Washington, D.C.; many practitioners continue to protest at the Chinese embassies and consulates in other countries. This year is the 15th year of Falun Gong's anti-persecution campaign, We are holding a protest in the capital of the United States to call for the world to help stop the persecution and violation of Falun Gong practitioners' human rights.”
The reporter found recent reports on the Internet about Falun Gong's protests of various scales in Australia, Canada, Singapore, France and many other countries, calling for an immediate end of the persecution by the CCP.
Suzanne Scholte, President of Defense Forum Foundation, said in her speech on Capitol Hill that she was reminded of “the poem by German pastor Martin Niemöller which describes how a rising and growing evil in one country can not only bring suffering in that country, but will eventually affect the entire world.”
She paraphrased Niemöller's poem, “The Chinese Communist Party came after the students, but I was not a student. So I did not speak out. The Chinese Communist Party came after the Falun Gong, but I was not a Falun Gong practitioner. So I did not speak out. The Chinese Communist Party came after the labor activists, and human right lawyers, but I was not a labor activist or a lawyer. So I did not speak out. The Chinese Communist Party came after the Tibetans, but I was not a Tibetan or a follower of the Dalai Lama. So I did not speak out. The Chinese Communist Party came after the petitioners, but I was not a petitioner. So I did not speak out. The Chinese Communist Party came after the Uyghur of East Turkestan, but I was not a Uyghur or a Muslim. So I did not speak out. Then they came after me. And there was no one there to speak out for me.”
After the rally, Falun Gong practitioners held a parade along Pennsylvania Avenue to the Washington Memorial, led by a band and the police. The large parade attracted many spectators.
Mr. Xue Bin, one of the parade organizers, said of the parade, “This is a parade marking 15 years of effort against the persecution. The theme of the first procession is Falun Dafa's wide spread around the world. The second is about the brutal persecution which has killed more than 3,700 people. The third is about quitting the CCP. We hope more people will quit and thus disintegrate the CCP. We will work together to end the persecution of Falun Gong.”
A candlelight vigil on the National Mall in the evening ended the series of protest activities in Washington D.C. However, Falun Gong's fifteen-year-long peaceful resistance to the CCP's persecution will not end.