This month marks the 26th anniversary of the Chinese Communist Party's violent suppression of Falun Gong — a persecution that changed my life forever.

Twenty-three years ago, I watched my father being dragged away by Chinese police. I was four years old. We had just sat down for breakfast when the knock came.

The men at the door said that they were from the water utility company. My grandmother opened it and two of them came in. They started to argue with her and then, suddenly, more plainclothes police stormed in. They grabbed my father and forced him into a police car. I ran to the window and watched as the vehicle disappeared down the road. It was the last time I saw him.

Two weeks later, my family learned my father was in a hospital, struggling to breathe. His body, I was later told, was covered in bruises and swelling. He died a few weeks after that. His crime had been practicing Falun Gong, a meditation discipline rooted in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance.

We were an ordinary family. My father was a food safety inspector, my mother a dental nurse. But it was 1999, and the Chinese Communist Party had launched a campaign to........

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