(Clearwisdom.net) On the evening of April 25, 2004, practitioners in Los Angeles held a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate to commemorate the fifth anniversary of the April 25 appeal near Zhongnanhai. They also called on the public to learn the truth about April 25 appeal and to help stop the brutal persecution of Falun Gong.

Two weeks ago, the Chinese Consulate removed the lawn in front of the gate and planted shrubs instead, though practitioners still spend their spare time holding several large signs and sitting on the roadside near the shrubs and on the lawn across street to mediate and send righteous thoughts.

On April 25, 1999, after Tianjin police beat and arrested dozens of practitioners, 10,000 practitioners went to appeal to the State Council Appeals Office in Beijing to request the authorities to give them the freedom to practice Falun Gong. The practitioners' appeal displayed peacefulness and rationality, extraordinary courage that have left a glorious page in human history.

After the April 25 appeal, Jiang Zemin made it into an excuse to arrest practitioners on a large scale and began an inhumane persecution. It has been nearly five years. The verified number of Falun Gong practitioners who have died as a result of the persecution is 955, but the actual number that has been estimated in the thousands.

Over the past five years, practitioners have been adhering to "Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance" and have persevered and peacefully resisted the persecution, so that Jiang's attempt to "eradicate Falun Gong in three months" ended in failure. Falun Gong has not been eradicated, but has flourished around the world. With more and more countries and people learning about the facts of persecution, Jiang's persecution has become more and more difficult to sustain. At present, Jiang and his followers have been sued in more than a dozen countries on charges of torture, genocide, and crimes against humanity.