(Minghui.org) Falun Dafa practitioners held a rally outside the Chinese Consulate in Chicago on April 16, 2022, to commemorate the 23rd anniversary of the April 25 peaceful appeal which took place in Beijing on April 25, 1999.
As they did the exercises, many passersby stopped to watch or videotape, and learn the movements. Many people also learned about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) brutal persecution through reading the banners and information boards, prompting them to sign the petition to call for an end to the atrocities.
On April 25, 1999, 10,000 Falun Dafa practitioners went to the State Petitions Office in Beijing to ask for the release of 45 practitioners in Tianjin who were arrested, and requested that the government allow practitioners to practice Falun Dafa legally in China. Practitioners remained calm throughout the entire appeal.
The Premier at that time met with representatives and released the detained practitioners. The appellants departed quietly that night and the appeal ended satisfactorily. Many Western media reported on the incident and called it the largest scale appeal in China after the Tiananmen Square student protest on June 4, 1989.