Falun Gong practitioners gathered in Sydney on Saturday to mark the 22nd anniversary of a significant day for the group—the peaceful April 25 appeal at Chinese Communist Party (CCP) headquarters in Beijing. Out of respect for Anzac Day, the large crowd gathered at Sydney Town Hall a day early to hand out fliers and raise awareness of the appeal that took place outside the State Council’s appeals office in Beijing on April 25, 1999. On that day, around 10,000 Falun Gong practitioners went to Beijing to appeal for the release of around a dozen practitioners who were wrongfully arrested in Tianjin city days earlier. Then Premier Zhu Rongji won international acclaim for peacefully responding to the demonstrators by engaging in dialogue with them. However, this changed overnight when then CCP leader Jiang Zemin overthrew Zhu’s decision and unilaterally initiated what has become one of the longest-running persecutions against people of faith in …