WASHINGTON—Thousands of Falun Gong practitioners from across the nation rallied at the National Mall on July 17, marking 26 years since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) began a systematic persecution targeting the faith group. Leading human rights experts spoke, highlighting a critical crossroads.
The persecution is not something only happening in China, they said, as the CCP has ramped up its transnational repression campaign and exported its persecution efforts onto American soil.
Rep. Pat Ryan (D-N.Y.) said he was honored to join Falun Gong practitioners’ continued efforts to counter the CCP’s persecution. Ryan’s district includes the headquarters of Shen Yun Performing Arts, a classical Chinese dance company founded by Falun Gong practitioners.
“Your unwavering adherence to the values that we see here so powerfully today, of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, truly serves as a beacon for everyone in our great country, in the United States America,” he said.
Ryan said he is asking law enforcement on the federal, state, and local levels to do more and understand the “scope and breadth of illegal and inappropriate actions” that the Chinese regime has carried out against Falun Gong practitioners on U.S. soil.
“We can’t lose focus,” Ryan told The Epoch Times after the rally. “We need to do more.”
26 Years
Falun Gong is a peaceful spiritual practice that involves meditative exercises and moral teachings centered on the three principles of truth, compassion, and tolerance. It surged in popularity in China in the 1990s, with about 70 million to 100 million people taking up the practice by the end of the decade, according to official estimates at the time. This was deemed a threat to the communist regime’s absolute control.Since July 20, 1999, the CCP has sought to wipe out the practice through violent means, including torture in concentration camps and forced organ harvesting, as well as manipulation of public opinion with propaganda.
Then-Party leader Jiang Zemin, the architect of the persecution, had expected he would be able to “eradicate” the practice in short order. But 26 years later, Falun Gong is still practiced not only in China but in around 100 countries worldwide, and practitioners continue to call attention to the CCP’s human rights abuses.
“We gather here to bear witness to an ongoing tragedy,” said Alan Adler, executive director of Friends of Falun Gong.
“But the CCP failed to understand that you cannot extinguish the human spirit. For 26 years, Falun Gong practitioners have stood firm, with unwavering conviction, inspiring people worldwide.
“This persecution threatens the fundamental right of every human being to believe and live according to their conscience. When we defend these practitioners, we defend human dignity itself.
“The CCP influence has spread far beyond China’s borders. If we remain silent, we turn away, we risk losing the freedom that defines us as a civilized society today.”
Greg Scarlatoiu, president of the Committee for Human Rights in North Korea, said Falun Gong practitioners are an inspiration to human rights advocates, having stood against one of the most repressive regimes in the world.
“No oppressive campaigns are welcome on U.S. soil. They never will be,” Scarlatoiu said. “Truth, compassion, tolerance, and human rights will always prevail. We will prevail together and soon celebrate the fall of tyrants.”
Policy for Change
Piero Tozzi, staff director of the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), a bipartisan and bicameral panel, said the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong reveals its unchanged “monstrous nature.”“For over 25 years, Falun Gong has been the canary in the coal mine, warning of the oppressive nature of the communist regime,” said Tozzi, a longtime supporter of Falun Gong practitioners’ efforts to end the regime’s persecution.
Tozzi had served as senior policy adviser to Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who authored the Stop Forced Organ Harvesting Act of 2025 and held the first congressional hearing on the persecution of Falun Gong about two decades ago. Tozzi called on the Senate to pass the bill, which would sanction individuals involved in the CCP’s state-sanctioned operation to harvest organs from prisoners of conscience for sale on the transplant market.
Tozzi said that the CCP exploits the systems in free societies like the United States to advance its persecution overseas and that frontline law enforcement, on both state and local levels, doesn’t necessarily understand the nature of the communist regime.
“They don’t realize that this is a predatory regime, that this long arm extends to the United States of America, to Americans,” Tozzi said.
Escalation
Nina Shea, director of the Center for Religious Freedom at the Hudson Institute, said the communist regime’s sweeping repression of Falun Gong amounted to a genocide.“The threat to Falun Gong and other forbidden groups is coming here,” Shea said.
The CCP has been behind efforts to threaten, physically attack, and spread propaganda against these religious believers in America, Shea said.
“This is unacceptable, it’s un-American, it’s a denial of religious freedom, and a denial of free speech,” she said.
Faith McDonnell, director of advocacy at nonprofit Katartismos, said the CCP’s attacks on Shen Yun “represents a great escalation” of the CCP’s infiltration and subversion of American society and freedoms.
Rick Fisher, senior fellow at the International Assessment and Strategy Center, commended the bravery of Falun Gong practitioners who have not only stood up against the “cruel, perverse, barbaric persecution” by the CCP, but also offered its members the “chance to leave and join the rest of the world in its tolerance of human rights,” he said.
Christian Freedom International President Wendy Wright has worked to try to protect persecuted Christians around the world, and said Falun Gong’s response in the face of the CCP’s “overwhelming” persecution has given “the rest of us hope.”
“As I live here in Washington, D.C., I see Falun Gong everywhere, in all different avenues, spreading the truth, whether it’s through news or the art, creative art, through demonstrations, and by being so visual and vigilant,” she told The Epoch Times.
“It has really helped to hold the bar or show how to be an active voice on behalf of those who are being oppressed by the [CCP].”
‘An American Issue’
Teresa Zhang, 31, experienced the persecution as a young child in China.When she was in elementary school, her schoolmate’s mother—someone who cooked for her and brought her toys—was arrested and then killed within a week of detention.
When Zhang was 14, her teacher reported her for handing out some Falun Gong materials to classmates. She was detained and released the next day, but her mother was imprisoned for two years.
Now, the regime is trying to push the persecution to the whole world, Zhang said.
“This is the time people in the world should wake up: The Chinese Communist Party is anti-humanity,” she told The Epoch Times.
Kristina Feng was born in the United States one month after the persecution began. Her father and mother, then eight months pregnant with her, were among the Falun Gong practitioners who rallied in Washington in July 1999 as news of the CCP’s persecution made its way overseas.
“I’m here in memory of the people in China who were persecuted,” said Feng, who feels a responsibility to stand up for those denied freedom of belief in China.
She said that the CCP is exporting its persecution to the United States, noting that “it’s scary, but it’s not surprising.” It’s a reminder that the world cannot stand by as the CCP persecutes people for their faith, Feng added.
Entrepreneurs Babak and Julia Baniasadi both learned about Falun Gong less than a year before the onset of the persecution—Babak in Colorado and Julia in Germany. Neither could believe that the peaceful practice that had brought them so many benefits had been painted as an enemy of the state overnight in its country of origin.
On July 17, the Baniasadis and their son joined the rally in Washington because more needs to be done to raise awareness, they said.
“People are being tortured, murdered, killed, their organs are being removed—organ harvesting—for profit, families are being torn apart,” Babak Baniasadi said.
“And instead of the Chinese Communist Party stopping their persecution, they have even extended their persecution to us here in the United States.
“We’re just asking all kind-hearted people to recognize, spread the word, and stand up against the Chinese Communist Party.”
Julia Baniasadis said that sometimes, people are surprised to see that non-Chinese like themselves also practice Falun Gong, and she hopes to show people this is a global issue affecting not just the Falun Gong practitioners around the world, but all of humanity.
“This is not a Chinese issue. It’s also a worldwide issue. It’s an American issue,” she said.
