Liberty Square, Taiwan’s iconic tourist site, was awash in a sea of colors on Nov. 12, as more than 5,000 locals came together to deliver a message to communist China.
Their message was straightforward—while the communist regime continues to brutally persecute Falun Gong in China, across the strait in Taiwan and around the world, millions of people freely practice the spiritual discipline, and have done so for decades.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, consists of moral teachings based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, along with daily meditative exercises. Since its introduction in China in 1992, the practice has surged in popularity leading to an estimated 70 million to 100 million adherents in the country by the end of the decade.
But such popularity was deemed a threat by the ruling communist regime, which launched an expansive persecution campaign against Falun Gong practitioners in 1999. Millions of adherents have since been detained, according to Falun Dafa Information Center, and an untold number have died due to torture or forced organ harvesting.
On Saturday, in the capital of the democratic island of Taiwan, local Falun Gong practitioners, dressed in either yellow, blue, red, black, or white, sat on the square, arranged to form a massive version of the practice’s emblem, known as the Falun or Law Wheel. Beneath the emblem people formed a short phrase containing seven gigantic words in traditional Chinese characters. The activity commemorated the 30-year anniversary of the spiritual practice’s introduction in China.