LOS ANGELES—Over 150 practitioners of the spiritual discipline Falun Gong gathered for a candlelight vigil in front of the Chinese Consulate on April 23. April 25 marks more than two decades since around 10,000 practitioners of Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, quietly gathered near the Central Appeals Office in Beijing in 1999 to petition the government for the release of 45 practitioners illegally arrested in Tianjin, a city 60 miles east of Beijing. At that time, up to 100 million people in China were practicing Falun Gong, according to official estimates. Since then, adherents have been arrested and tortured within the country’s prisons, labor camps, and psychiatric wards, in an effort to force them to renounce their faith. “You can see the sharp contrast between Falun Gong practitioner’s peacefulness and the brutality of the persecution,” Michael Ye, the host of the vigil, told The Epoch Times. The vigil commemorates …