SAN FRANCISCO—Bay Area Falun Gong practitioners held a rally in front of the Ferry Building on April 24 to commemorate an anniversary and to raise awareness that the meditation discipline Falun Gong is still being persecuted in China today. On April 25, 1999, around 10,000 people gathered peacefully at the Chinese communist headquarters at Zhongnanhai to appeal for their right to freely practice Falun Gong. The appeal took place after the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began to treat Falun Gong’s enormous popularity as a threat. “[The practitioners] had the heart to go to talk to the leadership of their country, to peacefully explain why they should not be interfered with,” said Chris Kitze, a participant at the rally in San Francisco. Before the 1999 appeal, a few practitioners had been arrested in China after a magazine reported false information about the practice. Practitioners believed it was their duty to tell …