(Clearwisdom.net) On April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners peacefully gathered at the State Council Appeals Office near Zhongnanhai (The Chinese regime's central government compound), exercising their constitutional right to appeal to the government. They asked for the release of more than 40 practitioners who had been unlawfully arrested by Tianjin police several days before, as well as the right to continue publishing Falun Gong books.
However, to justify their groundless persecution of Falun Gong, the Communist regime led by Jiang Zemin claimed that Falun Gong practitioners' legal appeals were “creating trouble” and that they had “besieged” Zhongnanhai. The practitioners' appeal was peaceful; there was no shouting nor did they obstruct traffic. They did not in any way besiege or attack Zhongnanhai. They were simply exercising their constitutional right to make an appeal at the appeals office, which is located near Zhongnanhai.
In fact, all along it was the Communist regime that was “creating trouble” and inverting what is right and wrong to suit its needs. It is because of the regime's relentless harassment of Falun Gong that practitioners went to Beijing to appeal.
The regime began making trouble for practitioners in 1996. On June 17, 1996, the Guangming Daily published an article slandering Falun Gong. Guangming Daily is a mouthpiece for the Communist regime. All previous political campaigns in China started with criticism and defamatory comments published in the communist state's mouthpieces. Falun Gong practitioners are peaceful, law-abiding citizens. They have no political agendas and are good people who act in accordance with the principle of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance. The regime used the Guangming Daily to publish slanderous articles, in a deliberate move to initiate trouble where none existed.
On July 24, 1996, China News Publishing Bureau, a branch of the Ministry of Propaganda, issued an internal document banning the publication of Zhuan Falun, China Falun Gong and other Falun Gong books. These books guide people to improve themselves. Many people have improved their moral values and stopped doing bad deeds after reading these books and practicing Falun Gong. Books that promote obscenity and greed are widely circulated in China, yet a book like Zhuan Falun, which teaches people to live in an upright manner, is banned from publication. Wouldn't this cause one to question what's going on?
As early as 1997, police departments nationwide gathered evidence to be used to frame Falun Gong, adopting the approach of first convicting a person of a “crime”, and later investigating and gathering evidence to support that charge. However, after investigating, police departments throughout the country reported back that nothing illegal was found in Falun Gong. Falun Gong is a practice that people are welcome to learn, or not, and no one is required to join an organization. Falun Gong is not political, nor does Falun Gong accumulate money. Practitioners simply strive to be better people. Yet certain regime agents, driven by their lust for power, labelled Falun Gong a “cult”. In order to advance within the party, they ordered police nationwide to gather evidence and tried to create a “big case”, since there was no evidence of actual illegal activity.
In May 1998, Beijing TV station broadcast He Zuoxiu's defamatory comments on Falun Gong during the “Beijing Express” program. The program showed scenes of practitioners doing the exercises at a Yuyuantan practice site in Beijing, taken by the station's reporter. He Zuoxiu is a relative of Luo Gan, who was head of the Political and Judiciary Committee. The points he used to attack Falun Gong were irrelevant and groundless. He Zuoxiu was simply assisting the regime in causing trouble for Falun Gong.
After the program was aired, hundreds of Falun Gong practitioners from Beijing and Hebei Province wrote letters or went to the TV station, giving accounts of their personal experiences and pointed out that the contents of the program distorted the facts. On June 2, 1998, the Beijing TV station admitted that the Falun Gong program was deliberately misleading. Then the station aired a positive program, showing practitioners peacefully doing morning exercises in a park along with other groups.
However, He Zuoxiu did not give up, even though his attempt to slander Falun Gong on Beijing TV met with failure. He continued to look for opportunities to cause trouble for Falun Gong. On April 11, 1999, he wrote an article for the Science Review for Youth magazine published by Tianjin Normal University, citing the same points used in the Beijing TV station's 1998 program to support his defamatory remarks about Falun Gong. After the article was published in Tianjin, local practitioners felt that it was necessary to clarify the facts to responsible parties. From April 18-24, several practitioners went to see the magazine editor and secretary, peacefully narrating their personal experiences and the benefits of practicing Falun Gong.
Unexpectedly, on April 23-24, police in Tianjin mobilized riot police to rough up practitioners who came to explain the facts. Some practitioners were injured and 45 were arrested. The police were clearly the aggressors, unreasonably arresting practitioners who came to peacefully explain the facts.
When practitioners asked for the release of the detained practitioners Tianjin, they were told by Tianjin City government officials that because the case had been handed over to the State Security Department, the arrested practitioners could not be released without authorization from Beijing. They told practitioners to go to Beijing to resolve the problem. It was obvious from the officials' behavior and attitude that they were being pressured by top level officials within the regime.
On April 25, 1999, tens of thousands of practitioners went to appeal to the State Appeals Office near Zhongnanhai to peacefully state their case. After meeting with several of the practitioners, the then Premier agreed to have the jailed practitioners released and affirmed the government's policy of non interference with public exercises. That night at 10 p.m., the practitioners quietly left the State Appeals Office. The whole event was very orderly and when the practitioners left, the site was not marred at all by trash. Even cigarette butts thrown on the ground by police were picked up by practitioners.
What took place on April 25 was a direct result of operatives within the regime causing trouble for Falun Gong practitioners. The practitioners were simply clarifying the facts peacefully, using legal means, to stop the harassment that the CCP had begun in 1996. Given the history of the CCP, it can be surmised that even if the gathering on April 25 had not taken place, the regime would have looked for other ways to justify its persecution of Falun Gong. The Communist regime is by nature deceptive, evil and violent, and its history is one of internal strife and outwardly-directed persecution. Since its inception, the Communist regime has never stopped persecuting others in an attempt to create strife where there was none and thus create the illusion of its own importance and justify its existence.