(Clearwisdom.net) In the morning on April 25, Dallas Falun Dafa practitioners held a group practice in Plano to commemorate the April 25^th Appeal and raise awareness of the decade-long persecution in China.

Practitioners Mr. Wan and Ms. Yang came from Tianjin, China and they started to practice Falun Dafa in 1997. Before they immigrated to the US, Mr. Wan taught at a university in Tianjin and he said that there were many practitioners in the city before the persecution started in 1999. "Every morning, in the parks and on the sidewalks of many streets, you could see people practicing Falun Dafa," said Mr. Wan.

Ms. Yang also shared her story: "We were still in Tianjin in 1999. One day, a practitioner at my practice site told us that the Journal of Tianjin Education Institute published an article which slandered Dafa. I thought it was necessary to clarify the truth to the institute, and thus I went there to tell them my experience with Dafa. Two days later, I heard that some practitioners went to the Beijing National Appeal Office to appeal as they were told that this issue could not be resolved by the local authorities. If I knew this, I would have gone with them."

Mr. Wan added: "In fact, the Chinese Communist regime's persecution of Falun Dafa is illegal and officials at all level know that Falun Gong practitioners are good citizens and very good people. However, to protect their own interests, they carried out the persecution unwillingly, as they would lose their positions in government if they resisted."

Mr. Sun has practiced Falun Dafa for more than 10 years, and he said: "I heard about the April 25th Appeal in Beijing while I was in the States. I felt that my fellow practitioners in China expressed their wishes with a very peaceful and compassionate approach. The only thing that they demanded was a legal practice environment, and the appeal demonstrated the practitioners' peacefulness and rationality."

A Chinese immigrant who came from Hunan Province was attracted by the practitioners' banners which read "Commemorating the April 25th Appeal," "Stop the Persecution of Falun Gong," and "Falun Dafa is Good." He told a practitioners that he knew about the persecution very well.

Upon seeing the banners, a westerner pulled over in her car to learn about the persecution. She said that she would try her best to help end it.