(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners the world over hold activities every April, commemorating the April 25th Peaceful Demonstration in 1999. The peaceful demonstration, in which 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners quietly petitioned the government in Beijing for their rights, astonished Western society and was the first time many people had ever heard about Falun Gong.

Margery Dunn, from Brisbane, Australia, started practicing Falun Gong in October 1999. She shared her impression of the April 25 ^th Peaceful Appeal, and how it impacted her.

Margery began practicing Falun Gong in Australia. When she took up the practice, she did not know about the April 25 ^th Appeal, nor did she know that the practice was under persecution in China. A few months later, she learned in the Australian media that the practice was being persecuted. By then she also heard the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) propaganda attacking Falun Gong, but it did not influence her in the least.

“Having lived in China for a couple of years, and knowing that they do things a little strangely over there – they have their own rules and laws that are quite different from the Western society – I was able to ignore all of what was said. It didn't worry me at all, because I was already aware of the strangeness of the Chinese media … they never print anything that serious or newsworthy.”

She didn't find out about the April 25th Appeal until a year later. She hadn't realized how severe the persecution was.

“I was not really aware of it until I had practiced Falun Dafa for six months, because I was just overwhelmed with the beauty of the practice, and it seemed like the persecution was small and was only happening maybe in one or two cities in China at the time. I had no idea that the persecution involved the whole of China. Only later, after I had read the first-hand reports of practitioners in many cities across China being affected and persecuted did I realize how severe the persecution was.”

When Falun Gong practitioners went to the State Council Appeals Bureau in Beijing, trying to tell the decision makers the truth about Falun Gong and restore its reputation, Margery believes that that was something anyone in the Western world would do.

“It is something that we do in Australia. We have peaceful appeals, we have marches, we have gatherings. When there is injustice, that is something all around the Western world that we do quite often.

"So I thought, 'Yes, this is something that people in China did, and that was their legal right to gather.' And looking at the photos that I saw then, it was a peaceful gathering, it was not a crowd that filled the streets and stopped traffic. It was a large number of people gathering on the footpath, and very peaceful. They weren’t even holding banners or megaphones, chanting as some protesters do in the West.

“I know that, in China, people seldom gather. People seem to accept a lot in life, very few protest, possibly because the government doesn’t allow it. But for ten thousand people to drop what they were doing, to travel to Beijing because they felt that the officials in Beijing needed to know the truth about Falun Gong, about our practice – that was surprising the number of people who wanted to reassure the regime they were no threat to anyone and just wanted an environment to practice in and to be allowed to gather to study together.”

The 15-year-long persecution is still going on. Margery said, “I thought the persecution wouldn’t last. Then, year after year, instead of lessening, information about the persecution kept coming, and the number of actual recorded deaths and unknown deaths continue to increases.”

Margery has been active in calling upon the international community to help stop the persecution.

“We need to talk about it on a large stage, a global stage, and, in order to do that, we do need to appeal locally to our members of Parliament and organizations like Amnesty International, just keep reminding them that the persecution has not lessened, it is still going on, and for them to continue to work, have a louder message. The Chinese communist regime is actually doing bad things to its own people, the people it is supposed to represent and protect.”

When asked why she cultivates Falun Gong and what she feels are the benefits, Margery said, “It made a difference right from the start, with how I handle my life and my lifestyle. Life’s a bit of a roller-coaster. By practicing Falun Gong and studying the teachings, I now understand what life is all about, so when the tough times come, I understand it, I can take a step back mostly and see it for what it is, and move forward with better decisions in my life.”