(Minghui.org) Practitioners held group practice and rally in Westlake Park in the center of Seattle on April 20, 2025, to commemorate the 26^th anniversary of the April 25 appeal. They called for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) persecution of Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong).

Practitioners did the exercises in Westlake Park to commemorate the 26^th anniversary of the April 25 appeal.

As practitioners demonstrated the exercises, many passersby stopped to watch. Some talked with practitioners, while others read the display boards.

People learn about Falun Gong.

A family of three and the grandmother from Australia were visiting Seattle. The grandmother and mother read the information about the CCP’s forced organ harvesting and said the crimes the CCP committed against Falun Gong practitioners were heinous. They thanked practitioners for telling them about it.

After reading about the CCP’s forced organ harvesting, a Seattle city employee said, “Chinese people should resist tyranny like Martin Luther King, the civil rights leader in the United States, did. You Falun Gong practitioners are great. Never give up your pursuit of justice. Thank you!”

Background: What Is the April 25 Appeal?

Falun Dafa (also known as Falun Gong) was first introduced to the public by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, in 1992. The spiritual discipline is now practiced in over 100 countries worldwide. Millions of people have embraced the teachings, which are based on the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance and include five gentle exercises, and experienced improved health and well-being.

On April 23 & 24, 1999, police officials in Tianjin, a city near Beijing, assaulted and arrested dozens of practitioners who had gathered outside a the office of a college publication to discuss errors in a recently-published article attacking Falun Dafa. As word of the arrests spread and more practitioners inquired with officials, they were told they had to take their appeals to Beijing.

The following day, April 25, some 10,000 Falun Dafa practitioners spontaneously gathered at the Central Appeals office in Beijing, as they had been instructed by Tianjin officials. The gathering was peaceful and orderly. Several Falun Dafa representatives were called in to meet with Chinese premier Zhu Rongji and members of his staff. That evening, practitioners' concerns were answered, the arrested practitioners in Tianjin were released, and everyone went home.

Jiang Zemin, former head of the CCP, perceived the spiritual discipline’s growing popularity as a threat to the CCP’s atheistic ideology and issued an order to ban Falun Dafa on July 20, 1999.

Minghui.org has confirmed the deaths of thousands of practitioners due to the persecution over the years, while the actual number is suspected to be much higher. More have been imprisoned and tortured for their faith.

There is concrete evidence that the CCP sanctions the harvesting of organs from detained practitioners, who are murdered to supply the organ transplant industry.