NEW YORK—Any other Sunday for college freshman Elsie He would have been a day of reading, studying for class, or doing meditation. But something else was weighing on her mind that cloudy April 25. Donning her usual outfit of a light single-layer cotton jacket, long dark pants, and sneakers, with her long black hair tied…

NEW YORK—Twenty-four years ago thousands of Chinese citizens gathered outside of Zhongnanhai, the Chinese Communist Party’s headquarters at the heart of Beijing. They were Falun Gong practitioners, and were there to peacefully call on the communist regime to end the harassment and suppression of their peers by local authorities. Less than three months later the…