A journalist advocacy group is calling for the release of 11 Chinese citizens who were detained after providing photos that offered a glimpse into the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic to the Chinese-language edition of The Epoch Times. The 11 are all adherents of Falun Gong, a spiritual practice that has been heavily persecuted by the communist regime for decades. They have been held in a Chinese detention center pending trial for more than a year since their arrest last July. Beijing authorities initially accused them of “using a heretical religion to sabotage law enforcement,” a charge often leveled at the adherents as well as Chinese believers in other faiths, according to the adherents’ lawyers. The offense is punishable by lifetime imprisonment, according to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate, the regime’s top prosecution body. The arrests took place in Beijing on July 19 last year, a day before the 21st …