(Minghui.org) Two Maoming City, Guangdong Province, residents stood trial on June 25, 2025, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Tao Yonghong
Ms. Wang Ying
Four lawyers represented Ms. Wang Ying, 66, and Ms. Tao Yonghong, 64. They defended the two women’s constitutional right to freedom of belief and demanded their acquittal. The prosecutor was unable to answer the lawyers’ questions and the judges “jumped in” to help him when they were supposed to be impartial during the arguments between the prosecution and the defense.
Arrests and Indictment
The prosecution of Ms. Wang, born in March 1959 and Ms. Tao, born in August 1960, was triggered by police investigation of the latter’s efforts to have her pension reinstated.
Ms. Tao’s pension was suspended in January 2022 after she served a three-year prison term for her faith. She hired a lawyer to help her write and mail nearly 180 complaint and appeal letters to various government agencies. Some agencies turned in the letters to the Guandu Police Station and urged Xu Yue’e, director of the local Shida Street Committee, to report Ms. Tao to the Maonan District Police Department. An investigation ensued and the police discovered that Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang also worked together to contact lawyers to seek justice for other detained Falun Gong practitioners.
The police arrested Ms. Wang and Ms. Tao on December 13, 2023, when the two went to visit the latter’s 90-year-old mother Ms. Ding Jiaxi. Instructor Wang Jinhai and officer Yang Xiaosi from the Maonan District Police Department and officer Zhang Chong from the Guandu Police Station raided Ms. Ding’s home before searching Ms. Wang and her daughter’s home. Officers Wei Zuzhen, Zou Qiang, Zhang Zhiqi, and Xu Mingmao joined in the raid of Ms. Wang’s home. The practitioners’ computers, cell phones, TF cards, flash drives, DVDs, Falun Gong books, and informational materials were confiscated.
Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang were put on criminal detention at the Maoming City First Detention Center on December 14, 2023. They both refused to sign the detention notice as they broke no law in practicing Falun Gong.
On December 28, 2023, instructor Wang, officer Tang Yanfeng, and team leads Su Guojia and Yang Jianwei from the internet surveillance team issued a verification report stating that the items confiscated from the two practitioners’ homes were illegally owned items. By law, only an independent, third-party agency is authorized to verify prosecution evidence. Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang thus refused to sign the verification report.
The Maonan District Procuratorate issued formal arrest warrants for the two women on January 19, 2024 and received their joint case file from the police at the end of March 2024.
Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang hired an out of town lawyer to represent them. The lawyer traveled to the Maonan District Procuratorate on April 2, 2024, but was barred from reviewing his clients’ case files. See the first related report for details of the lawyer’s encounter at the procuratorate.
Prosecutor Yang Xiande proceeded to indict Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang and wrote on the indictment paper that “I’ve incorporated the defendants’s legal opinion,” when the lawyer was denied access to the case file and unable to submit a legal opinion.
The lawyer filed a complaint against Yang and demanded the unconditional release of his clients.
Trial
The Maonan District Court tried Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang on June 25, 2025. The hearing began at around 9:45 a.m. Judge Tan Wei presided over the trial, assisted by judges Chen Lei and Ke Xuejun, assistant to judges Liu Xianhua, and clerk Shao Liang. Prosecutor Cai Linhui was present too.
Three more lawyers joined the out-of-town lawyer to defend Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang. Two family members were allowed to attend the hearing and two others with unknown identities were seen there too.
The two practitioners and their lawyers requested that prosecutor Cai be recused because the Maonan District Procuratorate issued formal arrest warrants without legal basis and indicted the practitioners without allowing their defense to review the case files. As such, no prosecutor in the procuratorate was qualified to prosecute the two practitioners.
The defense also requested the recusal of any judge or assistant who was a member of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), the reason being that atheist CCP members were not fit to prosecute someone for their spiritual belief.
Judge Tan announced a brief recess in response to the requests. After the hearing resumed, he rejected the requests and ordered the trial to go on. He promised to offer the lawyers lunch if they agreed to have no more breaks. The lawyers felt that a lot of legal matters were unclear and that they needed breaks to talk among themselves. Tan gave everyone a lunch break but refused to provide the lawyers with lunch in retaliation.
After the trial resumed, Tan only allowed the lawyers to refute the allegations listed in the indictment. He stopped the lawyers when they brought up the fact that the persecution of Falun Gong was a political persecution that violated multiple international treaties and that law enforcement and the judicial system were merely tools used by the CCP to carry out its directive.
Tan also interrupted Ms. Tao and Ms. Wang when they tried to share how Falun Gong improved their health and characters.
Prosecutor Cai read preprepared statements and did not know how to answer the defense’s questions. The judges jumped in to help him answer questions when they were supposed to be impartial during the arguments between the prosecution and the defense.
Tan ended the hearing at around 4:45 p.m.
Past Persecution
This is not the first time that Ms. Wang and Ms. Tao have been targeted for their faith.
Ms. Wang was a jade expert and an engineer at Guangzhou Institute of Geochemistry, Chinese Academy of Sciences. She served two years of forced labor and three years in prison for practicing Falun Gong. Her employer fired her in May 2011 after she was released from prison. They also reduced her years of service to zero from her pension calculation, resulting in her completely losing her retirement benefits.
Ms. Tao is a retiree of Sinopec Maoming Petrochemical Company. She served three years in prison for her faith (2011-2014) and was briefly detained on several occasions. In June 2022, the social security office ordered Ms. Tao to pay back more than 102,000 yuan in pension benefits (including about 50,000 yuan in payments issued during her three-year prison term and more than 52,000 yuan in annual benefit increases she'd received since her prison release). They threatened to suspend her future pension if she did not comply. It is unclear whether she paid the money as ordered.
When Ms. Tao was not incarcerated, she and her mother faced constant harassment from the authorities.
Related Reports:
Two Guangdong Women Face Indictment for Their Faith, Lawyer Not Given Access to Their Case Files
Two Guangdong Women in Detention for Their Faith in Falun Gong, Both Previously Jailed for 3 Years
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