In Praise of Falun Gong Practitioners: True Heroes of Our Time

Epoch Times

12-05-2025

The following is a speech delivered by award-winning writer, poet, and Chinese democracy activist Sheng Xue at Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto on May 11, during an event to celebrate the World Falun Dafa Day, marked on May 13. The text has been translated from Chinese and edited for clarity.
Today, we are here to celebrate World Falun Dafa Day. I stand here with respect and gratitude to commemorate this important day with everyone, and to once again tell the world that the Falun Gong practitioners adhere to human conscience and unyieldingly guard the light in the darkest times.
Falun Gong was introduced by Mr. Li Hongzhi in Changchun, China, on May 13, 1992, and he subsequently travelled the country to teach the practice publicly. In just a few years, it quickly spread widely in China because it improved physical and mental health while emphasizing living by the principles of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance' and cultivating one's moral character. According to official statistics from the Chinese regime at that time, by 1999 there were between 70 million and 100 million practitioners across the country.
Sheng Xue, a journalist, poet, and Chinese democracy activist, attends the World Falun Dafa Day celebration event at the Nathan Phillips Square in Toronto on May 11, 2025.
Arek Rusek for The Epoch Times
During those years, this group had no organizational form, made no political demands, and held no open protests. They just tried to be good people with an honest, kind, and tolerant attitude. However, their existence caused extreme panic for the Chinese communist regime because of their large numbers, profound moral influence, and the natural opposition between the truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance they believe in and the falsehoods, evil, and 'struggle' mentality of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP).
On July 20, 1999, the CCP brazenly launched a comprehensive persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners, mobilizing the entire state machinery to suppress them: military, police, special forces, propaganda, public opinion, medical care, and diplomacy, initiating a rare religious extermination operation in modern society.
Under the totalitarian suppression, however, Falun Gong practitioners did not disappear, but began the most tenacious, morally appealing, and peaceful movement in human history to get the truth out about the violent campaign against them, resist persecution, fight for freedom of belief, and begin the great movement of ending the CCP's tyranny.
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The CCP wanted to disintegrate the spiritual group with violence and lies, but it did not expect that in response to this persecution campaign Falun Gong practitioners would forge extraordinary organizational, communication, and media creation capabilities.
Falun Gong has no political power and no capital, but practitioners living overseas have mobilized as volunteers around the world to take action to end the persecution of their fellows in China. They have approached parliaments, courts, and human rights organizations of democratic countries, and raised awareness in dozens of countries around the world. Through motions, legislation, and sanctions, they continue to expose the CCP's persecution.
Some practitioners have built their own independent media outlets, including The Epoch Times, New Tang Dynasty Television, and Sound of Hope Radio, covering multiple language regions around the world. They have become a news force in the international community that is not influenced by the CCP, is not afraid of suppression, does not succumb to the temptation of money, and will not be bought.
Over the past 26 years, in a world that has been gradually coerced and undermined by the CCP's tyranny and foreign influence, intimidated by terrorism, media manipulation, political corruption, and moral degradation, Falun Gong practitioners worldwide have consistently upheld fundamental human values, demonstrating resilience and dedication.
Falun Gong practitioners have no violent weapons, but have firm beliefs; they have no regime to rely on, but have built a global network of determined volunteers. They have approached the United Nations, the European Parliament, the U.S. Congress, the Canadian Parliament, the Australian Parliament, and other places to promote legislation and investigations, and have established lasting and cooperative relations with politicians from many countries. Many countries have passed motions and bills to support Falun Gong, condemn the persecution, and sanction the CCP's evil deeds. Behind all of these are the unremitting efforts of Falun Gong practitioners.
The media outlets established by some Falun Gong practitioners have also ignited the light of freedom in the dark era of the totalitarian control of information. They have established an independent media network covering the world, not only exposing the CCP's lies and crimes, but also providing true, conscientious, and in-depth reports and opinions for the Chinese-speaking world (apart from inside China) and Western society.
In today's era of strong infiltration of the CCP's widespread foreign propaganda, subversion of the international order, the spread of terrorism, and the rampant growth of extreme left-wing ideology, the role played by these volunteers in resisting at the spiritual, cultural, and information levels is extremely critical.
They use Falun Gong's core values of 'Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance' to fight against violence, hatred, and lies, awakening the world's paralyzed conscience. They have raised global awareness of the threat of totalitarianism while exposing the true nature of the CCP, and indirectly improved the self-immunity and resistance of world civilization.
In the past two decades, the CCP has continued to escalate its persecution campaign. The most heinous thing is that the regime systematically conducts and profits from forced organ harvesting against illegally imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners—this is a state-led large-scale genocide unprecedented in human history.
Canadian human rights lawyers David Matas and David Kilgour, as well as U.S. investigative journalist Ethan Gutman, have conducted independent investigations with Falun Gong as the main victim group, and ultimately revealed that forced organ harvesting is a state-level crime against humanity. Falun Gong practitioners have worked to expose the CCP's organ harvesting, which has shocked the world.
In 2019, the China Tribunal, an independent people's tribunal in London chaired by the former British judge Sir Geoffrey Nice, confirmed this crime after an 18-month investigation. It found 'beyond reasonable doubt' that forced organ harvesting of Falun Gong prisoners of conscience in China has been going on for many years. This is one of the most serious human rights crimes in the 21st century.
It is not the country, the organization, or the government that works to expose all of this and seek justice, but the Falun Gong practitioners themselves. They rely only on faith, conscience, and unremitting action.
Falun Gong practitioners—both inside and outside China—are not silenced by fear, do not betray because of hidden interests, and do not retreat because of challenges. They are not bystanders of the times; they are the backbone of fighting lies, upholding faith, and supporting civilization.
The CCP has been 'rewriting humanity' with a series of lies, language reconstruction, and moral decline. In this process, Falun Gong practitioners are the most sober force. They know the nature of the CCP and will not be confused or hoodwinked.
Now, the world's inertia in allowing the CCP's interests to drive it is being challenged, the chaotic trend of communism's counterattack is being stopped, and the situation of growing aggressions by the CCP is being changed. Falun Gong practitioners have played an important and key role in this transformation process, and I believe that will continue.
Today, I want to say this: In this moral tug-of-war, Falun Gong not only did not fall under the CCP's onslaught, but stood strong under the pressure and will be on the right side of history.
Falun Gong practitioners have not only upheld the principles of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance, but also safeguarded the basic human dignity and the future of religious freedom, raising the moral bottom line that can keep the world from collapsing in times of crisis.