The night of 20 July 1999 still haunts countless families across China. Under the cover of darkness, police and security agents raided homes, dragging away innocent citizens—men and women who simply practiced Falun Gong, a peaceful system of meditation and moral self-improvement. They were taken to detention centers, tortured, imprisoned. Some never came back.

The world must not forget.
Just as the Holocaust claimed 6 million lives and left scars that still burn today, so too must we remember this more recent, ongoing campaign of brutality. Silence and ignorance are what allow atrocities to flourish. As Auschwitz survivor Philip Riteman warned: the Holocaust must be remembered so it “doesn’t happen again.”

History teaches us that governments can operate vast machinery of terror in complete secrecy. Hitler’s Germany and Stalin’s Soviet Union proved that. Today, China’s authoritarian regime is doing the same—waging a decades-long war against Falun Gong, under the radar of much of the world.

A Cover-Up on a Massive Scale

For 26 years, this campaign has been hidden in plain sight.
Why don’t more people know that up to 100 million peaceful meditators have been targeted for eradication—just because they followed a practice rooted in truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance?

Falun Gong, or Falun Dafa, is a traditional spiritual discipline. It combines meditation and gentle exercises with teachings that stress moral character. Unlike many groups, it has no fees, no rituals, no rigid hierarchy—just a focus on inner growth. Its wide popularity in the 1990s (even among Communist Party elites) and its independence from the state made the regime uneasy.

Tensions culminated in April 1999, when over 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered peacefully near the central government compound in Beijing to request legal recognition and freedom from state interference. This demonstration is misconstrued as triggering the persecution that followed.

So, on July 22, Falun Gong was officially banned, and a state-led hate campaign began. Then-President Jiang Zemin personally ordered the crackdown, creating the now-infamous 610 Office—a Gestapo-like agency tasked solely with the “eradication” of Falun Gong.

A Campaign of Lies, Torture—and Murder for Organs

The persecution went far beyond arrests. According to independent investigations, tens of thousands of practitioners have been killed for their organs, feeding China’s billion-dollar transplant industry.

Renowned Canadian human rights advocates David Kilgour and David Matas uncovered chilling evidence: detention centers where prisoners were tissue-typed like cattle; hospitals ready to perform “on-demand” transplants; families who never saw their loved ones again.

Chinese authorities order police to hide these deaths, to cremate bodies without consent, and to report murders as “suicides.” Homes are destroyed. Entire families ruined. This persecution has consumed a quarter of China’s financial resources, funded by taxpayers.

Who Is the Real Enemy?

What crime did Falun Gong practitioners commit? 
They believed in moral values. They chose a path of peace. They stood for truth.

Yet they were branded enemies of the state—subject to torture, brainwashing, and execution. The 610 Office operates outside all laws, using quotas and incentives to coerce police into committing unspeakable acts. Those who torture well are rewarded. Those who don’t are punished.

The Power of Peaceful Resistance

Despite the horror, Falun Gong practitioners have never retaliated.
Their movement of peaceful resistance is often compared to that of Mahatma Gandhi or Martin Luther King Jr. Their unwavering commitment to truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance has stunned even their persecutors.

Falun Gong practitioners are killed for standing up for Truthfulness, Compassion and Tolerance

Throughout the past 26 years, Falun Gong practitioners all over the world have continued with an unprecedented campaign that is strictly non-violent and non-political. Through the internet and the web sites they have built up a world-wide network; and Human Rights organizations, prominent non-governmental organizations and politicians and leaders of various governments have joined a chorus of voices, condemning the Chinese Communist party’s twenty-year persecution. Their single objective is to restore the basic human rights of Falun Gong practitioners to freely practice their beliefs. The worldwide awareness of this issue has resulted in a big wave of support to the victims of the persecution in recent years.

As Levi Browde, Executive Director of the Falun Dafa Information Center, says:

“This anniversary is a time of commemoration for the millions whose lives have been unalterably changed by this violent campaign. It is also a time for hope... More and more people continue to find peace through the practice, and are peacefully standing up for their rights to do just that.”

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