On April 25, 1999 (three months before the persecution officially started) over ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the central appeals office in front of Zhongnanhai, in Beijing. Zhongnanhai is the central headquarters for the Chinese Communist Party and it also houses the office of the CCP leader. Falun Gong practitioners came to request that the harassment of practitioners and restrictions on publishing Falun Gong teachings end and that the unlawfully detained practitioners be released. The gathering was peaceful and orderly. The CCP misrepresented the this gathering in the media as a “siege” of the central government compound, and thus started to politicize Falun Gong, both in China and abroad.
What seemed to be a spontaneous, peaceful protest by Falun Gong practitioners, was actually orchestrated by some CCP officials and then used to ignite a persecution campaign that would plunge the entire nation back into the dark days of the cultural revolution, and worse. What’s the real story of this fateful day?
© NTD Legends Unfolding | 43min | Documentary Series
On April 25 ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the central appeals office in Beijing to request that the harassment of practitioners and restrictions on publishing Falun Gong teachings end and that the unlawfully detained practitioners be released. The gathering was peaceful and orderly. The CCP misrepresented the this gathering in the media as a “siege” of the central government compound, and thus politicized Falun Gong, both in China and abroad.
News report by CNN’s Judy Woodruff from June 4, 1999, included interview with the founder of Falun Gong, Mr. Li.
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