(Minghui.org) After 22 years of persecution, Falun Dafa practitioners continued their journey of peaceful protest and efforts to end the egregious human rights violations they face in China. Practitioners in southern California held a rally, parade, and other activities on July 17, 2021, at Barnes Park in Monterey Park, to raise awareness of the ongoing persecution.

Practitioners demonstrate the Falun Dafa exercises at Barnes Park in Monterey Park on July 17 before their rally to mark the 22nd year of the persecution in China.

A passerby learns the Falun Dafa exercises before the rally.

Practitioners hold banners and posters before the rally.

Former Teacher Still Suffers from Past Torture

Ms. Ding Xiaoxia taught English at a middle school in Jilin Province, China. After she began practicing Falun Dafa in 1994, her dizziness, anemia, insomnia, and other chronic diseases disappeared. “Falun Dafa gave me a new life,” she said.

Ms. Ding Xiaoxia addresses the rally

Following the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, Forbearance in her everyday life, Ms. Ding turned down numerous gifts from students’ parents, including a new house. She was once awarded Outstanding Teacher of Liaoning Province and was loved by her students.

The teacher was incarcerated multiple times for a total of 9 years because she refused to give up Falun Dafa after the persecution started in July 1999.

“The police arrested me many times. I was put in a brainwashing center twice, a forced labor camp for nearly two years, and a prison for seven years. I suffered mental and physical tortures no one can imagine.”

The guards shocked her with high-voltage electric batons. “Two guards shocked me in sensitive areas such as the neck and armpits. The skin on my neck was burnt. It hurts just thinking about it now,” she said.

“For a month in 2005, I was tortured intensively. I was put on the stretching torture three times a day, and it lasted 90 minutes each time. One time it lasted four hours. It felt like horses were pulling my limbs apart in different directions. Eleven days later, the flesh of my limbs tied by the ropes ruptured, festered, and bled.”

She still suffers from the effects of the torture.

She talked about how the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) fabricated fake news to slander Falun Dafa practitioners. The local authorities bribed the family of an executed death-row inmate to position the dead body to look like a suicide by hanging. Wine bottles and cigarettes were placed next to the body. News outlets then claimed that the deceased inmate was a Falun Dafa practitioner.

“I saw it happen with my own eyes. People I knew told me that they had never seen that person practice Falun Dafa,” she said.

At the rally, Ms. Ding named 25 practitioners she knew personally who died in China because they exposed the CCP’s lies against Falun Dafa. She said she was fortunate to be able to come to a free society to expose the crimes of the totalitarian regime. She called on the international community to pay attention to the persecution and help “end the CCP’s rule and bring justice back to the world.”

Deputy Chair of China Democracy Party: Practitioners Are “Highly Virtuous”

Zheng Cunzhu, Deputy Chair of the China Democracy Party, speaks at the rally.

After the CCP launched the persecution of Falun Dafa in 1999, Zheng Cunzhu, Deputy Chair of the China Democracy Party, said that his daughter in the second grade was asked to write an article at school to criticize Falun Dafa.

Falun Dafa, in fact, was nothing like how it was described in the CCP’s propaganda, said Zheng. “The practitioners I know are outstanding. They are highly virtuous.”

Harvesting Organs from Living Practitioners Intolerable

Li Hsian-Chun, president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs in Los Angeles

Li Hsian-Chun, president of the Formosan Association for Public Affairs in Los Angeles, said that people practice Falun Dafa to improve their health. Li said it is “unacceptable” for the CCP to remove organs from those who refuse to renounce Falun Dafa and sell their organs for transplants.

“The CCP is an evil regime and an anti-humanity entity,” said Li, adding that the regime would “collapse sooner or later.”

Li said those who sat in the Great Hall of the People to celebrate the CCP’s 100th anniversary were standing on the bodies of people the Party has killed.

Political Commentator Condemns the Persecution

Guo Shuren speaks at the rally.

Political commentator Guo Shuren told the crowd, “I must come to such a positive rally that calls for justice.” He said it is hard for Western society to understand why the CCP persecutes Falun Gong. He said the CCP cracks down on freedom and human rights because once it stops, the people will rise up against the regime.

“To harvest and sell organs from living practitioners is repugnant and the lowest of the low,” he said.

Doctor Calls on the Medical Industry to Help Stop Forced Organ Harvesting By Not Doing Business with China

Dr. Dana Churchill from Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH)

Dr. Dana Churchill from Doctors Against Forced Organ Harvesting (DAFOH) called on medical practitioners not to assist the CCP in killing Falun Dafa practitioners for organs. This atrocity was first exposed in 2006, and in the past 15 years numerous international organizations have investigated this issue.

He cited a March 2020 judgment by an independent China Tribunal in London that the killing of detainees in China for organ transplants has been practiced for years and still continues. He said the tribunal is “certain that Falun Gong is a source–probably the principal source–of organs for forced organ harvesting.”

UN human rights experts said in June 2021 that they were extremely alarmed by reports of alleged organ harvesting targeting minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners, Uyghurs, Tibetans, Muslims, and Christians, in detention in China.

Encouraging Chinese People to Quit the CCP

Helen Li

Helen Li from The Global Service Center for Quitting the CCP in Los Angeles said that so far over 380 million Chinese people have renounced their current and former memberships in the CCP and its youth organizations. She called on more people to quit the CCP in order to distance themselves from the regime so they would not be held accountable for its crimes in the future.

She said over 80 million Chinese have died from unnatural causes since the CCP took power. Its rule is based on deception and violence, and it has brainwashed Chinese people into becoming its slaves, she said.

She further stated that the CCP has infiltrated almost every aspect of the free world, including politics, economy, military, culture, and education. It uses communist ideology to sink mankind into a world that rejects the divine and traditional values, she said.

Persecution Brings Tremendous Harm to China and the World

Dr. Ye Ke from the University of Southern California said that Falun Dafa has helped tens of millions gain better health and improve their character.

“The persecution of Falun Dafa shouldn’t have happened. Unfortunately, it has lasted 22 years and caused the practitioners, the country [of China], and the world tremendous harm,” said Dr. Ye.

Dr. Ye Ke

Ye called on people and governments to speak up for the rights of Falun Dafa practitioners. He also called on the media to report more frequently on the persecution, which would help bring it to an end.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken announced a decision at a press briefing on May 12, 2021, one day before World Falun Dafa Day, that the U.S. government decided to sanction Yu Hui, former director of the Central Leading Group on Preventing and Dealing with Heretical Religions in Chengdu City, Sichuan Province.

According to Blinken, the sanction came as a result of Yu's “gross violations of human rights, namely the arbitrary detention of Falun Gong practitioners for their spiritual beliefs.” Both Yu and his immediate family would be denied entry into the United States.

“I’d like to see more of these just actions from the United States government,” said Ye.

Hong Kongers in SoCal (HISC) Support Practitioners’ Efforts to End the Persecution

Members from Hong Kongers in SoCal support Falun Dafa practitioners in their efforts to end the persecution.

Ms. Li from Hong Kongers in SoCal (HISC) said that the organization sides with Falun Dafa practitioners because “what the CCP does to the practitioners is being done to people in Hong Kong.

“Hong Kong is my home, and no one wants to live away from home. More and more people have emigrated from Hong Kong because they’d rather be destitute than live under the CCP's tyranny,” said Li. She hopes that Chinese people around the world will see the CCP’s true colors and help end its reign.