(Clearwisdom.net) It has been 10 years since the April 25th Appeal. As somebody who personally experienced this historic event, I would like to tell everyone my firsthand experience of that day to expose the lies of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
As a young practitioner, I wanted to tell the Government that Falun Gong was good
That day, an aunt told me that she was going to Zhongnanhai the next day to appeal for Dafa. I was a student at the time. I did not fully understand what the appeal meant, so I asked her. She said that in Tianjin, there was a magazine that published an article slandering Falun Gong and claimed it was harmful to young people. Practitioners in Tianjin went to the publisher to set the record straight. Several dozen practitioners were beaten and arrested. When practitioners went to ask them to release the arrested practitioners, the Tianjin authorities said it was out of their hands, and practitioners would have to appeal in Beijing. So the practitioners went to Beijing to let the Beijing government know the benefits of practicing Falun Gong and ask the government to release the practitioners. At the time, I thought that, as a young practitioner, I should tell the government of my own experience and let them know that Falun Gong is good. So I asked the auntie how to get there. She said the next morning they would take the subway and asked me to meet her there. I went to ask one of my classmates and she decided to go with me.
The next day, at the entrance of the subway, I saw many practitioners. I followed them and reached the west gate of Zhongnanhai. The office was not open when we got there. So we stood outside and waited. The police came over to question us. We told them that we were Falun Gong practitioners who were there to appeal. So they sent us to the other side of the street (across the West Gate) and had us wait there.
Unexpectedly, more and more practitioners gathered there. The police started to panic. They had practitioners standing on the side of the street. They watched us closely, so some practitioners started clarifying the facts to them. Practitioners were all very peaceful and stood there quietly. Every now and then, they shared experiences with each other briefly. When the police saw that, they became relaxed and gradually they started chatting amongst themselves and no longer paid too much attention to us.
Premier Zhu Rongji Came Out from the West Gate
I was standing in a corner far away from the West Gate. All of a sudden I heard people clapping. A dozen people came out of Zhongnanhai and walked towards the Falun Gong practitioners. Then many practitioners raised their hands. A few minutes later, these people returned to Zhongnanhai.
It turned out that Prime Minister Zhu Rongji was among that group of people. Someone told me that he said, "I understand your situation. There are so many people here to appeal and it is not possible to meet with everybody. Please send some representatives." Practitioners said there were no representatives. Zhu Rongji asked who would like to be the representatives. Immediately, many practitioners raised their hands. Mr. Zhu just picked three of them to follow him inside to clarify the situation.
Zhu Rongji Asked: Have You Received the Document I sent?
After a while, we saw one practitioner come out of the west gate. She walked over to our side. I had met her before. She was from Beijing University. She was a quiet person. I did not know her name. She asked us, "Have you brought any Dafa books with you? The Prime Minister wants to read Dafa books." Immediately, practitioners gave out ten different Dafa books. Fellow practitioners also asked her about the situation.
She said that as they were walking into the west gate, the prime minister asked them, "Have you received my document stating, 'Falun Gong practitioners can continue to practice'?" The three representatives were all shocked and said they had never heard about it. Zhu Rongji immediately sent people to investigate and found out that the document was being held by the Ministry of Public Security and was never issued.
She also said that they made three requests: immediately release the arrested practitioners from Tianjin; restore a peaceful and legal cultivation environment; restore the publication rights of Falun Gong books. At that time, that was all we could think of too. There were no other requests that we asked her to add.
There were practitioners walking around and told us that all practitioners had been cooperating with the police. We all followed their commands to stand wherever they asked us to. Later, the police all treated us nicely too. In other words, we were led by the police to "surround" Zhongnanhai.
I remember that in front of us there were huge camcorders pointing at us. I did not pay attention and was just sharing experiences, smiling with fellow practitioners. Another practitioner reminded me to be more serious.
The younger people were all standing in the front. The elderly practitioners were sitting in the back to do the meditation exercise or study the Fa. But, there were also some pedestrians standing behind us, chatting with practitioners, asking where the practitioners came from, who let us come here. During that time, we were all wondering who they were. Later, we realized that those were plainclothes policemen.
Late At Night, We Went Home
That night, we were told that the arrested practitioners in Tianjin were all released. Due to the amount of people, in order to avoid chaotic situations, it was decided to have the practitioners around the west gate leave first. We told other practitioners as we were leaving. I saw practitioners cleaning up the trash on the ground (later we heard that it was very clean after we left). I also saw the local practitioners inviting practitioners from other areas to stay at their homes for a night and leave the next day. The two of us thought that we had a dorm and we could invite one or two female practitioners over. So we went to invite a young female practitioner. She said she had to work the next day so she would leave to take the bus.
After that, I was thinking naively that the issue would get resolved. The practitioners at my hometown complained that I did not tell them about appealing. I told them that we did not realize the severity of it. The CCP always said that we were organized. If we were truly organized, a lot more practitioners would have been there. As it was, there were more than 10,000 practitioners from my city that did not know about this.
After the CCP started the persecution of Falun Gong, their lies deceived many practitioners and poisoned many people. However, lies are just lies after all. When I was persecuted, I told my experience to the person who was persecuting me. When my friends and classmates did not understand why I did what I did, I told them about this experience. They all became silent. Because they are familiar with practitioners, they knew I did not lie. They all said we are very kind. Therefore, many people have helped us. Some people even said that they would start practicing after the persecution stops.