【大纪元4月25日讯】（译文）1999年4月25日，数以千计的法轮功学员平静地在北京聚集，要求当局释放在一个邻近城市遭到殴打及关押的同修。更广泛而言，针对有少数高层官员一手策划对法轮功进行持续的骚扰，他们希望借此唤起政府领导的关注。
这次事件成为世界各地媒体的头条新闻，但对那些置身其中的人们来说，更重要的是：这是一个机会向中国领导层讲明法轮功是如何为他们的生命带来健康与和谐，某些中共官员（对法轮功）的攻击是毫无根据的。
十年后的今天，法轮功学员与他们的支持者，正在此向那次请愿所秉持的和平理性、正义和慈悲精神致敬。同样重要的是，我们还要忆念中国的法轮功修炼者与他们的家人，在面对无情暴力时不屈不挠的坚持信仰以及真、善、忍的根本原则而付出的巨大代价。
数以十万计的法轮功学员——也许是上百万人——仍然被非法囚禁在中国的劳教所及监狱，成为国内最大一群良心犯。数以万计的学员遭受中共警察及国安特务的酷刑折磨。已有超过3,200位修炼者被确认在迫害中失去生命，但在中共长达十年的迫害运动中，真实的死亡人数肯定远远不止此数。数以百万的其他修炼者，则被剥夺生计、失去工作、被开除学籍和其他形式的系统性不公平对待。
面对国家机器空前强横的镇压，中国内地的法轮功学员依旧每天冒着生命危险，不只是为了炼功和学法以求自身的提高，还要去告诉别人，他们所遭遇的不公正对待以及当局的暴行。在中国以外，世界各地的学员举办烛光晚会、集会、派发传单、征签，并采取一切非暴力的途径，让世人了解到身在中国的同修的遭遇。
这些行动的最终目的，由十年前到今天都未有改变，就是要结束迫害，说服人们不要参与伤害我们的姐妹、丈夫、母亲和朋友。这不只是为了保护我们所爱的人，也是为了其他民众，让他们免于在强加的沉默中，有意或无意地参与了这场恐怖的罪行。因此整体来看，法轮功修炼者的行动是以社会的利益为依归，去最终结束这个在中国大陆无辜老百姓经久不息的遭受残暴对待的漩涡。
因此，我们希望在这一天，全世界的人能与我们一起，向十年前那个北京的春日所展现的精神致敬与忆念，并让他长存不息。我们希望他们不要因为共产党虚有其表的极权控制，而简单接受不公正的现实；希望他们努力看穿中共宣传的帷幕，用自己的思考了解法轮功到底是什么；希望他们向我们的和平努力给予支持，恢复亿万中国人的希望、尊严与基本人权。
有了这样的共同努力，十年后的今天，我们可能正在庆祝法轮功在中国得到自由，中国社会也可以不再背负这场持续的暴力运动的沉重负担。
法轮大法信息中心
2009年4月23日
（原文）
Honoring Falun Gong’s April 25th Appeal, Ten Years On
Falun Dafa Information Center Press Release
23 Apr 2009
On April 25, 1999 thousands of Falun Gong practitioners gathered quietly in Beijing to ask for the release of adherents who had been beaten and detained in a nearby city. More broadly, they sought to raise concerns with government leaders about ongoing harassment of Falun Gong at the hands of a few high-ranking officials.
The event captured headlines around the world, but more importantly to those who were there, it was a chance to explain to the Chinese leadership how Falun Gong had brought health and harmony to their lives, and that the attacks by some Chinese officials were unwarranted.
Ten years later, Falun Gong practitioners and their supporters are honoring the spirit of peace, justice, and compassion with which that appeal was held. Equally important, we are remembering the tremendous price Falun Gong adherents and their families in China have paid for their unyielding dedication to their faith and its underlying principles of honesty, kindness, and forbearance in the face of unrelenting brutality.
Hundreds of thousands—if not millions—remain unlawfully imprisoned in Chinese labor camps and prisons, the largest single population of prisoners of conscience in the country. Tens of thousands have suffered torture at the hands of police and security agents. Over 3,200 identified adherents have lost their lives, though the true death toll of the decade-long persecutory campaign is almost certainly much higher. Millions of others face destitution, job loss, expulsion from school, and other forms of systematic discrimination.
With the machinery of the state turned against them as forcefully as ever, practitioners in China continue to risk their lives on a daily basis, not only to practice Falun Gong’s exercises and study its teachings for their own self-improvement, but also to inform others of the injustice done to them, of the atrocities happening in their own backyard. Outside China, practitioners around the world hold vigils and rallies, distribute leaflets, circulate petitions, and take whatever non-violent avenues might help raise awareness of what is happening to fellow adherents in the Middle Kingdom.
The ultimate aim of such actions remains the same today as it was ten years ago—to end the persecution, to convince people not to participate in harming our sisters, husbands, mothers, and friends. This is not only for the protection of our loved ones, but also for the sake of other members of the public, lest they willingly or not participate in terrible crimes, if only via forcibly imposed silence. It is thus with an eye towards the benefit of society as a whole that adherents act—to finally stop the cycle of violence against innocent people that has engulfed China for too long.
For this reason, we hope that on this day, people the world over may join us in honoring, remembering, and keeping alive the spirit of that spring day in Beijing ten years ago; that they not accept the reality of injustice simply because of the Communist Party’s seemingly tight grip on power; that they strive to see through the veil of Party propaganda and understand for themselves what Falun Gong is; that they lend their support to our peaceful efforts to restore hope, dignity, and basic rights to tens of millions in China.
For with such collective dedication, we might just find ourselves ten years from now celebrating freedom for Falun Gong in China and with that, the relief for Chinese society of no longer bearing the burden of a violent, ongoing campaign.
(http://www.dajiyuan.com)
