Falun Gong practitioners in Toronto gathered at the Ontario legislature on April 14 to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of a massive appeal in Beijing on April 25, 1999.
On that day, an estimated 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners gathered at the Appeals Office of the State Council in Beijing to make an appeal in accordance with the law for the release of 45 adherents who had been arrested in the city of Tianjin on April 23 and 24.
Riot police beat and arbitrarily arrested the practitioners on the heels of a slanderous article about Falun Gong published in a national magazine. Other incidents of harassment of practitioners had been happening since June 1996, when the Propaganda Ministry instructed various levels of government to criticize the practice.
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