(Clearwisdom.net) July 10, 2009, marks the tenth anniversary of the beginning of the tragic persecution of Falun Gong in China. Falun Gong practitioners around the world have been holding activities to protest the ongoing persecution.

On July 19, Voice of America (VOA) reported that Falun Gong practitioners in America had held parades, candlelight vigils and group practices in many cities including Washington, DC, and San Francisco, calling for support to end the Chinese Communist regime's brutal persecution. Similar events took place at the same time in many other areas including Berlin, Brussels Belgium, Sydney, Taiwan, etc.

The report said that overseas Falun Gong practitioners regularly protest the Chinese Communist regime's systematic persecution and torture of practitioners in China, and they hold protests at Chinese embassies and consulates year round.

According to the report, Jin Zhou, chief editor of the Hongkong-based Open Magazine, told VOA that the persecution, which was spearheaded by Jiang Zemin, had no legal basis. Jin said, "Jiang Zemin personally decided to persecute Falun Gong and forced Congress to pass a law later on to legalize the persecution. For this reason, fundamentally, I believe that the persecution of Falun Gong is illegal."

Cited by the VOA report, Jin said that Falun Gong was then a popular qigong practice and many people, including some high-ranking Chinese Communist Party officials and retired officials, were practitioners.