(Clearwisdom.net) Falun Gong practitioners assembled in front of the Chinese Consulate in Durban, South Africa on the morning of April 25, 2010, to protest the brutal persecution of Falun Gong.

The protest was peaceful. A banner stated "Stop Persecuting Falun Gong." Passersby slowed down their cars to watch the protest and read the banner.

It was the 11^th Anniversary of the April 25 Peaceful Appeal in Beijing. At least ten thousand Falun Gong practitioners gathered to appeal the wrongful jailing of several dozen of their fellow practitioners on April 25, 1999. The practitioners requested three things during their conversation with government officials: 1) the release of the innocent Falun Gong practitioners who had been arrested two days earlier in Tianjin, 2) the assurance of a fair and just cultivation environment for Falun Gong, and 3) permission for Falun Gong books to be published through normal channels. Even though the issues were basically resolved, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda machine claimed that the peaceful appeal was in fact a riotous siege of the Zhongnanhai central government compound (adjacent to the Appeals Office) and claimed the even as justification for the brutal persecution it launched several months later.