Over a hundred Orange County residents gathered in the village of Goshen, New York, on July 22 to raise awareness about the ongoing persecution of Falun Gong in China.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that combines meditative exercises with moral teachings centered on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance.

The practice gained popularity in China in the early 1990s, with an estimated one in every thirteen Chinese doing it when the Chinese Community Party launched an all-out persecution campaign on July 20, 1999.

Falun Gong Club of Orange County president Liam O’Neil said at the rally: “This is a day of mourning, it is a day of sadness, but it is also a day of great hope for humanity because more and more people are waking up to what Falun Gong is and what this persecution is.”

Goshen resident and musician Bob Torsello heard about Falun Gong for the first time at the rally and found the brutal persecution unfathomable.

“It is such a positive practice of the mind and body. How could that be a threat to the government? It is very difficult for me to comprehend,” Torsello told The Epoch Times.

Falun Dafa Information Center representative Ben Maloney said at the rally that four factors were at play behind the persecution: the popularity of Falun Gong, the jealousy and political motivations of then-leader Jiang Zemin, the practice’s values at the opposite of communist ideologies, and the independence of its adherents from any party control.

“After all, if you believe in something deep in your heart, that’s not something that the Chinese Community Party can take away from you,” Maloney said.

He cited imprisonment, torture, and killing—including the state-sanctioned forcible organ harvesting—as major means of persecution, which had so far resulted in over 5,000 documented deaths.

Mount Hope resident Lydia Wang shared how her family benefited from Falun Gong and suffered under the Chinese regime, including multiple detentions and the eventual death of her father.

In March, her mother was arrested for the eleventh time in China and sentenced to four years in prison.

She said the Chinese regime targeted her family in part because her brother, Steven Wang, is a principal dancer at Shen Yun, an Orange County-based performing arts company dedicated to reviving the genuine Chinese culture prior to the communist takeover.

“I do not know when this persecution will end. I do not know if I can see my mother again,” Wang said. “I hope people in China and around the world will be able to hear our stories, understand what the Chinese government is doing to its people, and choose to stand on the right side of history.”

Grace Chen, a student at Fei Tian College in Middletown, shared at the rally that both her parents were imprisoned in China now without little information about their whereabouts and release dates.

“I haven’t seen them for a long time, and there were many moments when I needed them and wanted them to stay with me,” Chen said. “They missed my 18-year-old birthday and my high school graduation.”

Deerpark Republican and New York Assembly Minority Whip Karl Brabenec sent a letter in support of the peaceful rally calling for an end to the persecution.

“As descendants of a family who fled the clutches of communist oppression in the 1940s in former Czechoslovakia to seek freedom in the U.S., I understand the gravity of your struggles on a personal level,” the letter reads. “Let us stand together across borders and boundaries to be the agents of change that ensure a brighter future for all those people everywhere oppressed by injustice.”

The Chinese regime took great lengths to cover up the persecution in China, including exerting influence over media on U.S. soil, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center.

Lifetime Goshen resident Steven Esposito told The Epoch Times: “It is terrible that they have to have this rally to make people aware of this tragedy.”

He said he had long heard about the practice through companies and organizations founded by local Falun Gong adherents, such as Dragon Springs in Deerpark and Fei Tian College in Middletown.

“I think what they are doing in Middletown is great,” he said.

Mount Hope Chinese Association spokesperson Chris Cheng said at the rally that it was important to share the facts about the Chinese Communist Party in local communities like Goshen because the regime’s influence hits close to home.

He cited the harassment against Shen Yun artists, the death threat he received as one of the organizers of a local event exposing the Chinese regime, and the use of hackers to collect the private information of Americans.

In March, a cyberattack originating from China hit one of the largest health care providers in Orange County and held its system hostage, according to County Executive Steve Neuhaus at a Warwick event.

Cheng said his association had hosted four seminars in Orange County to raise awareness of the harm of the communist regime, with more to come.