The Opportunity and Choices of April 25, 1999

(Clearwisdom.net) On April 25, 1999, more than 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners went to the Central Appeals Office adjacent to the Zhongnanhai leadership compound in Beijing. They went there to appeal to the Chinese government about the arrest and beatings of 45 practitioners who had been peacefully appealing in Tianjin and were arrested the day prior by the Tianjin police. They asked for the immediate release of the innocent practitioners, permission to legally publish Falun Gong books and to guarantee the freedom to practice Falun Gong. Those arrested in Tianjin were released. The practitioners peacefully dispersed. This was the incident of "April 25, 1999".

It has been more than twelve years since this day.

In the early period of the persecution, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched an overwhelming campaign of great criticism targeting Falun Gong. While slandering Falun Gong, the CCP admitted the fact that it had been suppressing Falun Gong for some time.

As early as 1996, the Ministry of Public Security had given Falun Gong a bad name with no grounds. The CCP regime also prohibited the publication of Falun Gong books. A dozen media outlets began to repeatedly defame Falun Gong.

As in the CCP's many previous campaigns of repression, the regime's media, it's propaganda mouthpiece, was taking the lead in the persecution.

In an out of character move, the Tianjin government authorities suddenly intervened with high profile conflicts between practitioners and media. which caused the trouble in the days leading up to April 25, 1999. Tianjin authorities ordered a large number of riot policemen to beat and arrest practitioners in public, and told them that the problem could only be solved if they went to Beijing.

Anyone familiar with the tricks that the CCP uses in its campaigns of repression would recognize from this that the CCP had already decided to launch a crackdown on Falun Gong, and that Tianjin was an “experimental site.”

Confronted with this situation, people who practice other types of exercises for health and fitness would have quickly given up. Who would stand up to an evil political party like the CCP for the sake of physical exercises?

Falun Gong is especially effective in healing and fitness, but what makes Falun Gong fundamentally different from the many seemingly similar practices is that Falun Gong requires a practitioner to focus on improving one's character. Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is the yardstick by which Falun Gong practitioners are to measure their every thought and action.

For those who had benefited from Falun Gong, what they were faced with the Tianjin incident was not just whether they could continue to practice Falun Gong. They were challenged with whether they could follow Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and try to be good people, and they were confronted with the issue of how Chinese society treats Falun Gong.

Going to Beijing to appeal then became the most natural choice. Tens of thousands of people practiced Falun Gong, and naturally practitioners who were considering appeals were many. Nobody needed to organize it, yet with this person wanting to go and that person also wanting to go, it ended up that ten thousand practitioners went to appeal in peace. The authorities used the opportunity as a propaganda ploy and twisted the peaceful appeal into a what the regime's media labeled at “siege” of the central government compound at Zhongnanhai, which happens to be adjacent to the Public Appeals Office that the practitioners had assembled in front of.

Out of their unselfish hearts, practitioners went to appeal with benevolent thoughts thinking that “the CCP will not persecute Falun Gong if they truly know Falun Gong”.

The peaceful demonstration touched many people's hearts. Through practitioners' words and deeds, some among the CCP's highest hierarchy did see the fact that Falun Gong is beneficial to China and the Chinese people. The result of their appeal was that the Tianjin authorities released all arrested practitioners that same day and the media announced that people were free to practice Falun Gong.

But harassment to practitioners from local public security bureaus increased rather than decreased after April 25, 1999. Local authorities tried to stop practitioners from practicing in many ways, sweeping the ground to create huge dust clouds around practice sites, as well as spraying filthy water and deploying loudspeakers around practice sites. Staff from some places publicly threatened, beat and detained practitioners. It seems that the large-scale persecution was postponed rather than avoided.

The CCP has been governing China with terror and maintaining it power through cruel political movements. It's former (but still very active) head Jiang Zemin, who hid his history of being a traitor, came into power by climbing and flattering people with ill thoughts, restricting people with viciousness. He cannot tolerate kindness at all. Just like what he expressed in his letter to Poliburo on the evening of April 25, 1999, he regarded Falun Gong's teaching of cultivation and being a good person as Falun Gong's competing for people with the CCP, and practitioners' appealing with great compassion and tolerance as challenges to his authority. What could have been done to avoid the persecution of practitioners in China, the country controlled by the evil CCP and Jiang Zemin?

From Falun Gong's current situation in China after being persecuted for 12 years, we can tell that the more people know about Falun Gong, the more difficult it is to continue the persecution. The more deeply Chinese people understand Falun Gong, the more clearly people see the evil nature of the CCP. Thus, we can imagine:

• If it were 100 thousand, a million, tens of million or all practitioners of 100 million instead of 10 thousands practitioners who went to appeal on April 25, 1999, the whole society would have immediately known about Falun Gong. Lies and slander would not have been able to deceive people and the persecution would have naturally died out no matter what the CCP or Jiang Zemin wished.

• If practitioners had not only gone to Beijing to appeal on and after April 25, 1999, but in all areas where practitioners were harassed, a large number of practitioners had publicly gone to local governments to appeal, then it would have definitely caused people in these areas to know the facts about Falun Gong. As a result, the persecution would have been resisted at different levels no matter how the CCP and Jiang persisted in their evil deeds.

• Speaking from the opposite angle, if practitioners had not appealed to Central Appeals Office, then the Tianjin model of persecution (i.e., media defamations leading to practitioners' appeals, thereby “justifying” the mobilization of vast numbers of police to publicly arrest practitioners,) could have been immediately employed across the whole county. The launch of large scale persecution would not have to wait until three months later on July 20, 1999. Or even the smaller scale persecution in various areas would have achieved the purpose and the large scale one would have not been necessary.

About 100 million Chinese including several tens of millions of CCP members practiced Falun Gong in 1999, professing belief in Falun Gong's universal characteristic of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. This led to great fear among top CCP officials, as Falun Gong practitioners far outnumbered Party members. As long as many in society did not understand Falun Gong, with the CCP's evil nature and Jiang Zemin's petty heart, the authorities were able to direct their mouthpieces to defame Falun Gong and turn public opinion against it.

Many believe that the peaceful appeal of April 25, 1999, will go down in history as one of the great days for mankind; a day where the forces of good and evil were set against one another; a day that mankind will never forget.