(Clearwisdom.net) Seven years ago on April 25, 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners went to appeal at the State Bureau of Letters and Calls, not Zhongnanhai. The direct reason for their appeal was the arrest of 45 Falun Gong practitioners in Tianjin City who had clarified the truth to the media. The actual background is more far-reaching: since 1996, the CCP regime's agencies had banned the publication of Falun Gong books and had organized various local media to slander Falun Gong in a well-coordinated manner. The police constantly harassed Falun Gong practitioners.

Even without the aforementioned hidden persecution that had started long before the 1999 nationwide persecution, the 10,000-person appeal on April 25, 1999 was absolutely not the trigger that led to the persecution of Falun Gong; it was a convenient pretext for the CCP to publicly persecute Falun Gong, while this excuse itself reveals the CCP's sinister nature.

A responsible government would think about how to address the grievances of appellants when large scale appeals took place, regardless of the location. Moreover, Falun Gong practitioners' request was fundamentally different from the requests of other people throughout history. The practitioners did not appeal because their material interests were infringed upon; they simply hoped the government would stop interfering with their conducting themselves according to Truth-Compassion-Forbearance and obtaining good health. Such pursuits are quite precious for rulers in today's times in any country around the world, regardless of the social system. Society would become safer every time one more person decided to live by Truth-Compassion-Forbearance; if more people wanted to follow Truth- Compassion-Forbearance, corruption, theft, robbery, murder and arson would be naturally restrained.

An appeal, even on a large-scale, is permitted according to the CCP's own laws and regulations. The intent of the appeal system is to provide the public with a channel to express their opinion. Falun Gong practitioners pointed out to the central government the misleading actions of the Propaganda Department and the Judicial Department towards tens and thousands of people. The practitioners followed the law to the letter, abiding by the law exactly! If these mistakes were corrected, the appeals would naturally stop. It wouldn't have taken much for the CCP to correct the mistakes, by stopping the interference and slander and living up to its own promise of "no intervention" policy towards qigong activities.

During the entire appeal, Falun Gong practitioners remained calm and kind and acted in line with the principles of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance. They totally followed the instructions from the police, which didn't give the CCP any excuse to launch a violent persecution. We can imagine that, to justify the persecution, if even one person among the 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners had acted in an extreme manner, the CCP would have seized upon the opportunity to launch an armed attack and vociferously repeated it throughout the subsequent persecution. Examples of this are numerous throughout the Chinese Communist regime's history.

The CCP falsely accused Falun Gong practitioners of "group attacking Zhongnanhai" and used this as a pretext to persecute Falun Gong. There is in fact a reason behind the CCP's seemingly tragic decision.

Because of several decades of ruthless CCP rule, many people have come to think without a doubt, "I'll simply do whatever the CCP tells me to do and steer clear of whatever it forbids me to do; otherwise I'll get in trouble, and I'll be blamed for whatever happens to me."

The CCP is well aware of the Chinese people's warped mentality; therefore it dared to openly use "group attacking Zhongnanhai" as justification to start the persecution. Through this incident, the CCP is clearly telling people, "You cannot come to Zhongnanhai. If you stand here, you are 'surrounding and attacking,' and a large-scale civil appeal is a violation of the law!"

The CCP has actually always fabricated some kind of pretext during its past political movements, such as the massacre of landowners, intellectuals and students. After experiencing so much terror and persecution, many Chinese people lost their instinct to resist persecution; instead, they do everything possible to avoid being persecuted and sometimes even take part in the persecution for their own protection. Under these circumstances, people would naturally accept whatever excuses the CCP dishes out for a persecution. History has progressed to this day. Many people now know that all persecutions are the inevitable outcome of the CCP's nature. No matter how well the victims behave themselves, the CCP is capable of any evil if it wishes to do so.

Unlike past victims, followers of Truth-Compassion-Forbearance not only conduct themselves by high moral standards; they also treat with compassion all people who have been deceived by the CCP's lies about Falun Gong, as they don't want to see anyone buying into the CCP's lies and as a result bring disaster on others and themselves. That is why the Falun Gong practitioners started clarifying the truth to people in a peaceful and rational manner right from the beginning of the persecution. They dispelled lies and slander to oppose the persecution. Because they had faith in Truth-Compassion- Forbearance, Falun Gong practitioners had the courage to walk to the Bureau of Letters and Calls on April 25. They have persistently spread the truth and the beauty of Falun Dafa throughout China and the whole world during the seven years of persecution.

Different from the results of past persecutions, the CCP not only failed in its persecution of Falun Gong, it is now facing disintegration and complete destruction. The mirror of Truth- Compassion-Forbearance accurately reflects all of the CCP's evil nature. In particular, since the publication of the Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party, more than 10 million Chinese people have withdrawn from the CCP and its affiliated organizations.

Now that we look back, it is not difficult for us to see that, if after "April 25 Appeal" the CCP had the slightest consideration for the future of the Chinese nation, or even if it truly thought about the impact of the persecution on its own political power, it would not have launched and maintained this inhumane persecution for seven years. Nevertheless, the CCP regime's evil nature does not permit it to coexist with Truth-Compassion-Forbearance, just as the head perpetrator Jiang Zemin blustered when he initiated the persecution, "I just don't believe the CCP can't defeat Falun Gong." The truth now is that the CCP could never be able to defeat Falun Gong. Falun Gong is being disseminated ever more widely around the world while the CCP is approaching total destruction. From this perspective, the "April 25 Appeal" was not "the match that lit the fuse" to start the persecution, but was in fact the last opportunity for the CCP to avoid its destruction. Still, the CCP turned it into the starting point towards its destruction.

Seven years have now passed. Countless Falun Gong practitioners have died, become disabled, or were forced into exile because of the persecution; many practitioners even had their organs removed while still alive, and their bodies were subsequently cremated to destroy evidence. However, the spirit of the great compassion, the great forbearance and perseverance in righteous belief that the Falun Gong practitioners manifested during the "April 25 Appeal" has remained and continued. Falun Gong practitioners in China and abroad are calmly and peacefully clarifying the truth about Falun Dafa, exposing the CCP regime's evil lies and the facts of the persecution; they are opposing the persecution and calling for conscience and justice. Enduring tremendous tribulation and making great sacrifices, they are creating precious opportunities for each person to enter a bright future.