(Clearwisdom.net) To commemorate the "April 25 Appeal" in Beijing in 1999, practitioners in Sydney, Australia held a rally and candlelight vigil on the square in front of the City Hall on the evening of April 24, 2008. They mourned the thousands of Falun Gong practitioners who have lost their lives because of the persecution, recounted the nine years of peaceful resistance, and condemned the CCP for its ongoing brutal persecution of Falun Gong.

Lucy Zhao, Spokesperson of Falun Dafa Association in Sydney, told the media about the background of their activity. She said the CCP is escalating its persecution under the excuse of the Olympic Games. In the past few months, more than one thousand practitioners were arrested. Some died from the persecution. They hope more Australian people, media and the government to pay attention to the persecution and help bring it to the end.

Dr. Li Yuanhua, a former faculty member in Beijing Normal University who participated in the appeal in 1999, recalled April 25 Appeal as a great event in Chinese history. CCP propaganda twisted the facts and turned the peaceful appeal into a "seige of the Zhongnanhai Central Government Compound," and many people to this day don't know the true situation.

Ms. Zhang Cuiying, a Falun Gong practitioner in Sydney, said the nine-year-long persecution is escalating under the excuse of the Olympic Games. She called for the Australian government and governments around the world to resist the persecution.

Liang Fengyuan, a freshman in University of Sydney, said many Chinese students still don't know the true story of the appeal. They only believed the propaganda drilled into them over and over by the state-run Chinese media. Liang hoped they would learn the true story soon.

Falun Gong practitioner Ms. He Qinglian said the police force of almost of whole city of Guangzhou was mobilized when they went to Zhuangzhou to appeal. She was imprisoned for a month and was still followed and monitored after being released, even when she went to shop for groceries.

For more about what happened that day, read here: http://clearwisdom.net/emh/articles/2008/4/25/96734.html