Stand With Shen Yun
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@StandWithSY
Shen Yun Performing Arts | Reviving 5,000 years of Chinese traditional culture through classical dance & music | Touring 200+ cities worldwide
On this day twenty-seven years ago, the Chinese Communist Party began its most brutal persecution of Falun Gong. On this day in 1999, I was still in Beijing. At four o’clock in the morning, I received a call from a fellow Falun Gong practitioner telling me that the CCP was about to begin suppressing Falun Gong. I decided to go to the State Council’s Letters and Visits Office to appeal and ask the authorities not to persecute Falun Gong. At a little after six that morning, I arrived at Fuyou Street in Beijing, where the office was located. But the moment I appeared, police officers who had been staying in the police van in wait there all night seized me, forced me onto a bus, and took me to Shijingshan Stadium. Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners and I were detained there for the entire day. From that day onward, one hundred million Falun Gong practitioners around the world were thrust into an ordeal of life and death, blood and fire. Many have even lost their lives. Yet we have neither yielded nor repaid violence with violence. With firm belief, tenacious effort, and a heart of great compassion and forbearance, we have resisted and dissolved the CCP’s unprecedented evil, and we are now hastening its final disintegration and demise. Please stand with us in defending justice in this world. A note about the photograph: It was taken in 2010, when I attended the annual candlelight vigil in Washington, D.C., commemorating Falun Gong practitioners who had been persecuted to death. The tears covering my face were shed for my fellow practitioners who had died. At the same time, they were also tears of profound emotion. As music composed by Falun Gong practitioners played during the vigil—music filled with compassion and sorrow, yet also with unyielding strength, perseverance, and the nobility of life—I was touched at the deepest level of my being. I was profoundly moved by the fact that, despite such brutal persecution, Falun Gong practitioners have remained steadfast in upholding the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, and by the enormous sacrifices and contributions they have made. This photograph was also used on the poster for the award-winning documentary Free China, in which I am the principal subject: freechina.ntdtv.org
