(Minghui.org) A 63-year-old woman in Linyi City, Shandong Province, is facing prosecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999.
Ms. Liu Chirong’s ordeal stemmed from her arrest on December 17, 2020, by Wang Hui, the captain of the Sishui County Domestic Security Office. She was held at the Sishui County Police Department overnight and taken to the Jining City Detention Center the following afternoon. Due to her health condition, she was denied admission and released on bail. She questioned captain Wang about what crime she had committed. Wang took out two photos with blurry faces and accused her of distributing Falun Gong materials.
In March 2021, the Rencheng District Procuratorate summoned Ms. Liu and told her that she was facing indictment. She was ordered to return in three months. To avoid further persecution, she decided to live away from home. When the police couldn’t find her, they put her on the wanted list.
Living in displacement took a toll on Ms. Liu’s health. She was unable to fall asleep or eat. When her family took her to the hospital, her heart beat was more than 200 times per minute, and she had severe heart failure. The county hospital couldn’t treat her, and she was transferred to a provincial hospital.
Although Ms. Liu survived, she was arrested again on August 20, 2025, while eating at a restaurant. Five days later, the Sishui County Police Department released her on bail, after forcing her family to pay 10,000 yuan as bail bond. They are now preparing to submit her case to the local procuratorate, with the charge of “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong.
Ms. Liu’s husband hired a lawyer for her. He and the lawyer met with officer Zhang Jiandong and Shi of the Sishui County Police Department on March 12, 2026, to demand a dismissal of Ms. Liu’s case.
Zhang asked about Ms. Liu’s health condition. Her husband showed him her medical records and talked about how her health had declined since her arrest in December 2020.
The lawyer pointed out that the persecution of Falun Gong didn’t have any legal basis and that the police didn’t have any actual evidence to show how Ms. Liu had harmed anyone or society at large by practicing her faith. In addition, given her health condition, the family strongly demanded her release.
Zhang and Shi didn’t comment on the lawyer’s request, but blamed Ms. Liu for writing them a letter urging them not to participate in the persecution.
Ms. Liu is a retired employee of the Mengyin County Power Bureau. Soon after she began to practice Falun Gong in 1998, her severe illnesses, such as hypertrophic obstructive cardiomyopathy and myasthenia gravis, disappeared. After the communist regime ordered the persecution in 1999, she remained firm in her faith and was repeatedly targeted.
All content published on this website is copyrighted by Minghui.org. Minghui will produce compilations of its online content regularly and on special occasions.
