(Minghui.org)
Name: Li WenfengChinese Name: 李文凤Gender: FemaleAge: 64City: ChongqingProvince: N/AOccupation: retired textile factory workerDate of Death: around February or March 2025Date of Most Recent Arrest: N/AMost Recent Place of Detention: Chongqing Women’s Prison
Ms. Li Wenfeng was seen in a prison surveillance video making her bed after getting up one morning, when she patted her head twice before collapsing on the ground. Her head hit the edge of the metal bed across from hers. She remained motionless and was later rushed to a hospital, where she died despite attempts to resuscitate her.
According to an insider, the guards at the Chongqing Women’s Prison played the above footage to other Falun Gong practitioners jailed there to prove that they had nothing to do with Ms. Li’s death.
The surviving practitioners, however, knew that Ms. Li, 64, died after repeated abuse in prison for holding firm to her faith in Falun Gong. One practitioner later faced threats when she refused to renounce her faith, with a guard warning her, “If you don’t behave, we’ll make you stand all night long like Li Wenfeng!”
Ms. Li’s death took place around February or March 2025, with the exact time to be investigated. Her exact prison term is also unclear.
The wrongful conviction of Ms. Li, born on March 28, 1961, stemmed from her arrest on September 7, 2021. Officer Duan Peng from the Hechuan District Police Department and several agents from the Nanjin Street Police Station followed her a bit past 8 p.m. that evening before seizing her on the street. They took her to the police department. At 10 p.m., two other officers took her to the local Chinese Medicine Hospital for a COVID-19 test and physical exam. After that, they brought her back to the police department.
Ms. Li’s home was also raided that night. The police confiscated a portrait of Falun Gong’s founder, over 40 Falun Gong books, a printer, ink, a stapler, a cell phone, an MP3 player, 70 copies of Falun Gong informational materials, 380 yuan worth of banknotes printed with Falun Gong messages, and a large amount of flash cards bearing Falun Gong information.
A little past 1 a.m. on September 8, 2021, Ms. Li was admitted to the Hechuan District Detention Center. Officers Duan, Li Yang and Yang Chengli came in to interrogate her many times. They also accused her husband of “harboring a criminal” and threatened to put him in jail and cancel Ms. Li’s pension. They warned that Ms. Li could be given a prison sentence of three to eight years. Her mother was so devastated that she became critically ill.
On September 27, 2021, Ms. Li’s husband signed a bail release on her behalf and she returned home. Officer Yang notified her husband on December 9 that year to bring her to the police department the next morning to face deposition by the Jiangbei District Procuratorate. Yang said Ms. Li must write statements to renounce and denounce Falun Gong in order to receive a light sentence to be served outside of prison.
Ms. Li did not go to the police department as ordered. She went into hiding on December 9, 2021. Her family had not heard from her since. It is unclear when she was arrested again and put in the Chongqing Women’s Prison.
Ms. Li retired from the Chongqing 61 Textile Factory. She used to suffer from numerous diseases, including allergic rhinitis, nephritis, migraines, and varicose veins. She also had an 11-centimeter pulmonary cyst but she could not afford to have surgery (which would cost 30,000 to 40,000 yuan). Her condition worsened in the next three years, with her left lung completely suppurated and compressing her right lung. Just when she was in despair, she came across Falun Gong in October 2005. All her symptoms disappeared and her bad temper improved significantly. She became calmer and kinder.
After Falun Gong practitioners across China started filing criminal complaints in 2015 against former Chinese dictator Jiang Zemin for launching the persecution, Hechuan District authorities began to harass local practitioners. Ms. Li was arrested in October that year and detained for an unknown amount of time.
She was arrested again in March 2016 and held in the Hechuan District Detention Center. Thirty-seven days later she was moved to a brainwashing center, where she was forced to watch videos slandering Falun Gong, write “thought reports,” and sing songs praising the Chinese Communist Party. He Yang, head of the Hechuan District 610 Office, tried to drive a wedge between Ms. Li and over ten other detained practitioners. Chen Dexing, of the Hechuan District Political and Legal Affairs Committee, also used psychological manipulation in an attempt to make the practitioners renounce their faith.
Ms. Li was released at an unknown time, only to be arrested again on December 29, 2016, while she was distributing Falun Gong informational materials. The police snatched her house key and raided her home that night when no one was home. They seized a bank book with a 60,000-yuan deposit, her lease, a debit card to deposit her pay, and all her Falun Gong books and informational materials.
Ms. Li was sentenced to one and a half years and admitted to the Chongqing Women’s Prison in 2017.
Ms. Li’s husband and daughter were repeatedly harassed and threatened by the police for her faith. They were unable to cope and lashed out at her instead. Sometimes they even beat her in an attempt to force her to renounce Falun Gong.
The authorities stopped Ms. Li’s pension in August 2021 and also seized the 3,000 yuan of pay that had been deposited into her account.