(Clearwisdom.net) Practitioners in Bali held a candlelight vigil at dusk on April 25, 2011 at Kuta beach to commemorate the 12th anniversary of the April 25 appeal. Many tourists stopped to learn more about Falun Gong during the event.
Practitioners in Bali hold a candlelight vigil to commemorate the April 25 appeal
A practitioner who participated in the April 25 appeal in 1999 recalled, “On my way home from work, I came across a fellow practitioner who told me that Tianjin practitioners had been arrested, and he planned to go to Beijing to appeal. I decided to go with him. So the two of us went to the railway station and got on a train to Beijing. We met many practitioners on the train. When we got off, we immediately went to the State Council Appeals Office on Fuyou Street in Beijing. Practitioners quietly stood on sidewalks in good order. Later on, someone asked if any practitioners were lawyers or had legal knowledge, and several practitioners stepped forward. These practitioners later entered Zhongnanhai as reprenstatives of our group to meet with officials. When they came out again they told us that then-premier Zhu Rongji had received them. Later that evening we learned that the practitioners illegally arrested in Tianjin had been released, so everyone left and headed home. At that time, the overseas media reported that not a single piece of paper or cigarette butt was left on the ground, creating a milestone for Chinese people's peaceful appeal.”
During the event in Bali, many tourists stopped to learn the facts about Falun Gong. Two tourists from China praised practitioners for their efforts to expose the evil of the persecution and uphold kindness. The were pleased to learn that Jiang Zemin, the chief culprit in the persecution of Falun Gong, has been sued in international courts. They were saddened upon learning that more than 3,000 practitioners lost their lives in the persecution. Both of them declared their withdrawals from the Chinese Communist Party and its affiliated organizations with the help of practitioners at the event.
Falun Gong has been well-received by people in Bali, and more than one thousand locals learned Falun Gong during the past several years.
Background:
On April 25, 1999, over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners in China gathered outside the State Council Appeals Office to demand their basic rights of belief and the immediate release of 45 fellow practitioners who had been unlawfully arrested. Though as a result of the appeal the Chinese Communist regime promised to protect the practitioners' rights and released the arrested practitioners, three months later, the regime started a nationwide persecution to "eliminate Falun Gong." The brutal persecution has continued for 12 years.
