(Minghui.org) The Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to openly persecute Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, and the persecution continues to this day. Over the past 25 years, Falun Gong practitioners in Hong Kong have regularly spoken up for persecuted practitioners in the mainland, despite their constrained environment of “one country, two systems.”
Video: Hong Kong Falun Gong practitioners’ July 20th commemoration of practitioners persecuted to death by the CCP.
Since the outbreak of COVID in 2020, the CCP's execution of the “National Security Law” and the Hong Kong government’s “Article 23” legislation this year, it has become difficult for Hong Kong citizens to hold peaceful protests or any large scale “July 20” marches to raise awareness of the 25-year persecution of Falun Gong. Despite these difficulties, Falun Gong practitioners are still active in Hong Kong. They held activities to call for an end to the CCP’s 25 years of persecution in parks and on overpasses.
More than a dozen practitioners held a banner reading “Falun Gong’s 25-Year-Effort to Call for an End to the Persecution” in Lai Chi Kok Park on a weekend morning in July 2024 and recorded a short video after practicing the exercises together. In the video they called for “an end to the persecution of Falun Gong.”
Ms. Zhang has been practicing Falun Gong for 30 years. “We are in a beautiful park in Hong Kong and can practice freely, but it is very sad to think that Falun Gong practitioners in the mainland are still persecuted,” she said. “Today, I came out to call on the CCP to stop persecuting Falun Gong and also to call on people around the world to pay attention to it and stop pretending they cannot see this persecution.”
David, who has just learned Falun Gong, was participating in such activities for the first time. He said he hoped that more Hong Kong citizens would learn the truth about the persecution. “Falun Gong is good. It makes people pay attention to health. More importantly, it encourages people to improve their moral standards,” he said.
Over the past 25 years, facing the pressure of the Chinese communist regime, practitioners in Hong Kong have supported mainland Chinese practitioners' efforts to call for an end to the persecution, and have fought for civil rights and freedoms for Hong Kong people. The most well-known victory was the “Obstruction Case.” After practitioners won the lawsuit, Hong Kong Democratic Party leader Situ Hua wrote: “Falun Gong has won a big battle to safeguard the rights of all Hong Kong citizens' to hold demonstrations.”
The “Obstruction Case” (also known as the “Yeung Mei Wan Case”) is considered a very important lawsuit in regard to Hongkongers’s freedom to protest and has been included in one of the compulsory legal courses of the University of Hong Kong. It has become an important legal basis for protecting Hongkongers’ rights to freedom of assembly and expression. The case is mentioned in the Department of Justice’s Prosecution Code and in the Police Guidelines.
The case was initiated after 16 local and Swiss Falun Gong practitioners went on a hunger strike and sit-in in front of the Liaison Office of the Central People’s Government on March 14, 2002. They were all arrested. After three years, they won their case in the Court of Final Appeals in 2005. Five judges, including the first Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeal Mr. Andrew Lee, ruled that the arrests were unlawful and stressed that the courts should interpret the freedom of expression and demonstration guaranteed by the Basic Law leniently.
Liu Huiqing was one of the practitioners who was arrested. Recalling the lawsuit, she admitted that the process was very arduous, and at one point she contemplated giving up the appeal. In the end, she realized the significance of the case and insisted on appealing to the Court of Final Appeals with other practitioners to restore her innocence. The case also established the legal basis for Falun Gong practitioners being able to tell the truth out in public.
“Now we cannot have petitions or marches, but we can still clarify the truth face-to-face and distribute newspapers,” Ms. Liu said. “Although the freedom is narrowed, we are still be able to do what we should do.”
When asked why she was able to persist in working against the persecution for 25 years, contributing money and effort, even at the risk of her personal safety, Ms. Liu replied, “People who have belief will understand, because the power of faith is so great.” She said that, although her husband does not practice Falun Gong, he supports her.
Another well-known Falun Gong case was the judicial review of the Immigration Department’s unjustified refusal of Shen Yun artists' visas. Shen Yun is a world-famous classical Chinese dance company that was founded in New York by artists who practice Falun Gong. In 2010, Shen Yun Performing Arts was scheduled to perform in Hong Kong, but was forced to cancel its performances after the Immigration Department refused to issue visas to members of the performing arts group. In 2011, the then High Court Judge and current Chief Justice of the Court of Final Appeals, Mr Justice Andrew Cheung, ruled in favor of Shen Yun and reversed the Immigration Department’s decision to refuse visas. His decision emphasized the importance of fairness in the Immigration Department’s decision-making process.
In early 2023, with the failure of the CCP’s “zero-COVID” policy to deal with the pandemic, mainland tourists poured into Hong Kong again after the lockdowns were lifted. Although banners cannot be displayed at Hong Kong's tourist attractions, Falun Gong practitioners can still distribute materials to tourists and encourage them to quit the CCP organizations.
Ms. Liao, who is in her 80s, took her mobile phone with a QR code that can circumvent the CCP's internet censorship and smiled as she handed it to tourists. She asked them to scan the code with their mobile phones to see the news that is blocked by the CCP. Ms. Liao likes to chat with tourists, hoping to awaken their consciences and sense of justice during their conversation. She tells them to keep goodness in their hearts and abide by human moral standards.
One tourist said to her, “Grandma, don’t talk about it anymore. No one dares to be a good person now.”
Ms. Liao replied, “Have you ever wondered why this is happening? It was the Communist Party that poisoned the Chinese with atheism so that people do not believe in God anymore. That’s why it is like this.”
Ms. Liao is pleased that many people who have chatted with her were willing to quit the CCP after learning about the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.
Falun Gong practitioners have peacefully opposed the persecution for 25 years, winning sympathy and support from the general public. Dr. Yeung Wing-Yu, a Hong Kong historian, said, “When I come into contact with any Falun Gong practitioner, I can sense the determination to act with the goodness of human nature and their gentleness in dealing with others. I really admire them and also feel really comfortable.”
Yeung was in charge of history at the Hong Kong Examinations and Assessment Authority (HKEAA) from 2005 until 2020, when he was forced to resign due to criticism by the CCP’s mouthpiece. He said that, after 2019, the CCP stepped up its restrictions on human rights in Hong Kong, which also made many Hongkongers more sympathetic to Falun Gong practitioners. People noticed that practitioners had started to fight for human rights 20 years earlier than the rest of the general public in Hong Kong. “The CCP’s smearing of Falun Gong and the CCP’s smearing of Hong Kong’s protest movement are of the same nature. Therefore, after experiencing this baptism, Hong Kong people have an additional layer of empathy for Falun Gong,” said Yeung
Yeung Wing-Yu also said that, in the past, many people misunderstood Falun Gong, but as the ugliness of the CCP has been increasingly exposed, more and more people have started to sympathize with and support Falun Gong.