Ten years ago tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of an event that changed China forever. As many as ten thousand practitioners of a popular meditation practice called Falun Gong... surprised Chinese leaders when they gathered en masse near the Beijing appeals office. Our correspondent in Hong Kong spoke with a Chinese human rights lawyer about the importance of this event.

In July 1999, the Chinese regime officially launched a crackdown of the Falun Gong meditation practice. And a gathering near Beijing's central leadership compound on April 25—three months earlier—was in many ways the beginning. On that day, ten thousand Chinese citizens appealed for their right to practice Falun Gong without harassment from the CCP and its state-run media.

We spoke with Xi’an City-based human rights lawyer Zhang Jiankang. Zhang says the April 25th sit-in was not only rational but notably peaceful. And it completely conformed with the people's right to appeal.

[Zhang Jiankang, Human Rights Lawyer]: (male, Chinese)
"I think it was a very significant and meaningful event in China's modern history. It was a rational and peaceful action undertaken by Chinese citizens, completely peaceful and justifiable, which is remarkable. It was a Chinese-style nonviolent movement."

Zhang says that, in his view, any civilized country and government should permit and approve such a rational action. The Chinese communist authorities, however, used state apparatus to violently suppress practitioners. Ten years later, Falun Gong has already spread around the world—and Zhang says this testifies even more to the fact that the communist authorities were wrong to launch the suppression.

[Zhang Jiankang, Human Rights Lawyer]: (male, Chinese)
"Falun Gong, you could say, has blossomed everywhere. The founder, and also some practitioners have even received awards and commendations, one after another. What does this say, then? It says that since April 25th, 1999, what the Chinese authorities have done to Falun Gong is completely a mistake and stands in contrast to the civilized world."

Zhang is one of many lawyers in China who are now speaking out against the Chinese regime's persecution of Falun Gong. Gao Zhisheng, another mainland Chinese human rights lawyer, has written open letters to the Chinese leadership to appeal on behalf of practitioners who have met with unjust persecution. The fact that Chinese lawyers are increasingly challenging the CCP's crackdown on Falun Gong, Mr. Zhang says, has opened up a new dimension in China's human rights movement.

NTD, Hong Kong.

To learn more about Falun Gong practitioners' appeal on April 25—and what it means to us here in the west—be sure to watch our documentary series, A Decade of Courage. It's available on our website, or you can go directly to www.ADecadeOfCourage.com.