(Clearwisom.net) Falun Gong practitioners rallied in a park near the local farmers' market to protest the Chinese regime's 11 years of persecution of the spiritual practice. The rally took place on July 24.

  Demonstrating the exercises

Passersby learn the facts of the persecution

  Passersby learn the facts of the persecution

Practitioner Omid looked back in the past 11 years of persecution. "All the state media ran propaganda to defame Falun Gong around the clock. Practitioners are imprisoned or locked in mental hospitals. They die as a result of beatings and injections of unknown drugs."

Patrick talked about how the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) has extended it hands to persecute practitioners outside of China. "Practitioners overseas are harassed, monitored, threatened and assaulted by CCP's secret agents. The CCP turned every Chinese citizen into accomplices of the persecution by asking police to arrest practitioners and rewarding those who turn in practitioners. The CCP demonizes Falun Gong and turned many in the country against the practitioners."

Mr. Ye asked the people in the rally to help end the persecution. "People who do not know about Falun Gong believe the CCP's lies and have turned against Falun Gong. In the past 11 years, the practitioners persistently tried to tell people of the world the facts of the persecution, hoping people will understand the truth and have the right idea about the persecution."

After the rally, practitioners continued to demonstrate the exercises and hand out fliers to passersby. A man who had just returned to Edmonton from Shanghai said that he had heard bad things about Falun Gong when he was in China. When he learned that all he had heard there was propaganda to vilify Falun Gong, he was shocked. According to him, when he was in China, he was often told, "Just do your job and leave other people's business alone." He said that, "Everything in China is about money and it seems there is no morality left."