(Minghui.org) Ms. Zhang Yanxia’s family has been denied visits with her since she was admitted to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison in mid-December 2025, to serve a five-year term for practicing Falun Gong. They were recently notified by the prison authorities that their loved one had developed heart disease from high blood pressure.
The family was still not allowed to visit her because she had refused to renounce Falun Gong as ordered. The prison promised to keep them posted about Ms. Zhang’s condition.
Ms. Zhang, in her 50s, and a resident of Heishan County, Heilongjiang Province, was healthy before her arrest on June 3, 2025, during a police sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. Due to abuse in the Jinzhou City Detention Center, she quickly lost weight. It is unclear what abuse she suffered after she was transferred to the Liaoning Province Women’s Prison.
Minghui.org had reported extensively on the prison’s abuse of jailed Falun Gong practitioners. Ms. Chen Yan, 45, died on November 8, 2025, three days after she was admitted to the prison to serve a 5-year term. Given this, Ms. Zhang’s family is extremely concerned about her well-being.
Ms. Zhang took up Falun Gong in February 1999. After the communist regime started a nationwide campaign against the practice five months later, she held firm to her faith and was repeatedly targeted. She was previously arrested in 2003 and 2005 and detained for two months each time. The police also fined her a total of 26,000 yuan.
Arrested in a Police Sweep, Two Liaoning Women Convicted for Their Faith
Jinzhou City, Liaoning Province: 36 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in Two Days
Liaoning Province Women’s Prison Gives Unknown Drugs to Falun Gong Practitioners
Ongoing Torture of Falun Gong Practitioners in Liaoning Province Women’s Prison
Falun Gong Practitioners Tortured in Liaoning Province Women’s Prison
The Recent Persecution of Falun Gong Practitioners in Liaoning Province Women's Prison