Falun Gong practitioners demonstrate the practice’s meditative exercises during an event held at Queen’s Park in Toronto on July 13, 2025, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution against Falun Gong. Jerry Zhang/The Epoch Times
Hundreds of people gathered at Toronto’s Queen’s Park on July 13 to call for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners that began in China 26 years ago.
The commemoration event consisted of a public demonstration of Falun Gong meditative exercises, followed by a rally with speeches, and concluded with a parade through downtown Toronto, which featured a marching band and a display of banners calling for an end to the persecution.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice rooted in the Buddhist tradition that was introduced to the public in 1992. It consists of gentle meditative exercises and living according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It spread rapidly in China throughout the 1990s.
However, on July 20, 1999, the leader of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched a violent and far-reaching persecution campaign aimed at eradicating Falun Gong due to fear of its popularity, which the communist regime interpreted as a threat to its power.
Falun Gong practitioners hold an event at Queen’s Park in Toronto to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, on July 13, 2025. Jerry Zhang/The Epoch Times
Falun Gong practitioners parade through downtown Toronto to mark the 26th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong in China, on July 13, 2025. Vincent Du/The Epoch Times
‘A Propaganda Campaign of Historic Size’
Reports indicate that millions of Falun Gong adherents have been forcibly removed from their homes and jailed, hundreds of thousands have been tortured, at least 5,000 have died due to torture and abuse, and hundreds of thousands have been subject to forced organ harvesting as prisoners of conscience.
Joel Chipkar, the spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, spoke at the July 13 rally about the CCP’s long-running persecution campaign and why the practice of Falun Gong is not a threat.
“In communist China, [Falun Gong] has been met with 26 years of imprisonment, torture, murder, forced organ harvesting, and a propaganda campaign of historic size,” Chipkar said.
“Today, we remember those lives that were lost, and we honour those still detained.”
He noted that despite the brutality and mistreatment, Falun Gong practitioners have never fought back with violence and have instead used peaceful efforts to raise awareness about the persecution, both in China—at great risk to themselves—and overseas.
“They’ve used every peaceful effort possible to save lives—speaking out, distributing flyers, founding media agencies to battle Communist Party censorship, and creating Shen Yun Performing Arts to share China’s true spiritual Heritage,” he said.
Joel Chipkar, spokesperson for the Falun Dafa Association of Canada, speaks at a rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto calling for an end to the 26-year persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, on July 13, 2025. Vincent Du/The Epoch Times
“As the founder of Falun Gong, Master Li Hongzhi, states: ‘Compassion is expressed in this world through love and kindness, and these are qualities that those who practice Dafa should always radiate from within,’” he said.
The persecution continues today and has “seeped into the West,” Chipkar noted.
“The Communist Party’s transnational repression efforts to hide these crimes has grown more aggressive—death threats, fake bomb scares, fake lawsuits and a smear campaign using Western media with multimillion-dollar ties to the Communist Party.”
Within the last year, some North American media outlets have attempted to discredit the spiritual practice and its associated organizations, including Shen Yun Performing Arts. Chipkar said these media companies have “helped fuel a campaign of silence, dehumanization, and murder,” and have dismissed the efforts of Falun Gong practitioners as “controversial, or political, or anti-China.”
Speakers at a rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto call for an end to the 26-year persecution of Falun Gong practitioners in China, on July 13, 2025. Vincent Du/The Epoch Times
Members of the China Democratic Party of Canada hold a banner at a rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto to call for an end to the persecution of Falun Gong in China, on July 13, 2025. Jerry Zhang/The Epoch Times
“They cite sources tied to the Communist Party, use reporters tied to the Communist Party, and repeat 26-year-old lies made up by the Communist Party, so readers have no idea of the propaganda playbook they’re being manipulated with,” he said.
This year, theatres hosting Shen Yun performances around the world received 140 fake threats of violence, including bomb and gun scares, which prompted heightened security measures at many theatre venues.
‘Words Cannot Fully Express Our Suffering’
Other speakers at the rally included Houqiang Yu, the president of the China Democratic Party of Canada, and Mandy Yang, whose mother is jailed in China for practising Falun Gong.
Yang said her mother was arrested in China and has endured at least seven abductions, two illegal labour camp sentences, and one instance of being confined in a psychiatric hospital.
Mandy Yang speaks at a rally at Queen’s Park in Toronto during an event marking the 26th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong, on July 13, 2025. Jerry Zhang/The Epoch Times
“Due to repeated torture, the toes on one of [my mother’s] feet were unable to straighten for a long time, and it took years for her to walk normally again,” she said, adding that she saw her mother taken away by police as a child in middle school and did not see her again for years.
“She was so thin she was practically skin and bones,” Yang said.
Yang said that before her mother began practising Falun Gong, she was in poor health, emotionally sensitive, frequently argued with Yang’s father, and took medication every day.
“However, after my mother started practising Falun Gong, all her ailments disappeared. She went out daily to join group exercises and never felt tired doing housework,” she said.
“The pain the CCP has inflicted on our family is immense—not only on me but also on my father and every family member. In this persecution, we have all endured so much: the heartache of losing loved ones, the fear of harassment by the evil regime. Words cannot fully express our suffering.”
Falun Gong practitioners parade through downtown Toronto on July 13, 2025, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong and to call for an end to the persecution in China and its extension abroad. Vincent Du/The Epoch Times
Falun Gong practitioners parade through downtown Toronto on July 13, 2025, to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party’s persecution of Falun Gong. Vincent Du/The Epoch Times
The Tian Guo marching band takes part in a parade through downtown Toronto to commemorate the 26th anniversary of the persecution of Falun Gong in China, on July 13, 2025. Jerry Zhang/The Epoch Times
‘Think Critically’
Chipkar called journalists, policymakers, and citizens to be open-minded and “think critically.”
“Falun Gong is not a threat,” he said. “The Communist Party has always beenthe threat. Our continued peaceful resistance for a quarter century of death and lies should speak volumes about who we are.”
“You may not share our faith, but we hope you can now understand what we face and what we’re trying to do,“ he added. ”We only ask to tell our story and be heard so lives can be saved.”
The parade, which concluded the July 13 event, featured the Tian Guo marching band, meditative exercise demonstrations, and banners calling for an end to the 26-year persecution of Falun Gong.
Olivia Gomm is a news reporter with the Canadian edition of The Epoch Times.