(Minghui.org) After the Chinese Communist Party launched a nationwide campaign against Falun Gong in July 1999, a large number of law-abiding Chinese citizens have been arrested and sentenced for upholding their faith. Even elderly practitioners are not spared. This report lists recent select cases.
Three In-custody Deaths in 2023
Ms. Ye Wenxiu, 77, from Chongqing, died in March 2023, while serving a 3-year term at the Chongqing City Women’s Prison. Her family was not notified of her passing, and they didn’t find out about it until her term ended in April 2024.
Ms. Mou Yongxia, 75, from Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province, died on July 13, 2023, while serving a 6-year term at the Heilongjiang Province Women’s Prison. She was brutally tortured and eventually unable to keep food down. Yet the guards accused her of “going on a hunger strike.”
Mr. Wang Zizhou, 74, from Sheqi City, Henan Province, died on October 14, 2023, while serving a 3.5-year term in the Xinmi City Prison. He was abused until he became severely ill in September 2023, yet the prison authorities never rendered him any medical care. They did not take him to the hospital until ten minutes after his passing.
Still Jailed
Mr. Luo Shuhua, 86, from Xinxiang City, Henan Province, was seized at home on March 13, 2026, and taken to the Xinxiang Infectious Diseases Hospital for “a shadow on her lung.” The police threatened to detain her after the treatment. Her ordeal stemmed from an earlier arrest in December 2020. She was soon released on bail due to health reasons and was tried around 2024. It’s unclear what her prison term was.
Ms. Li Yanyun, an 85-year-old former nurse in Kunming City, Yunnan Province, was arrested on September 28, 2021, and sentenced to one year on November 16, 2022. Due to her advanced age and poor health, she was allowed to postpone serving time. The police took her back into custody around late March 2026 and put her in the Yunnan Province Second Women’s Prison.
Mr. Wang Xiuqin, 84, from Fuzhou City, Fujian Province, was arrested on February 12, 2025, and sentenced to two years and five months in late January 2026. She was previously given a 1.5-year forced labor term in April 2002, and sentenced to four years in 2010. While her prison sentence was reduced to probation on appeal, the authorities kept her detained until November 2013. After another arrest on July 7, 2017, she was detained for over a month.
Ms. Wang Tianyin (also known as Wang Tianyun), 79, a retired worker from Baiyun District Aluminum Factory in Guiyang City, Guizhou Province, was arrested in February 2024 and sentenced to one year in January 2025. She was initially allowed to serve time at home due to health reasons, but she was taken back into custody in September 2025. The eight months she had served outside of prison were ruled to be invalid, and she was ordered to serve a full year in prison. She previously served three years and three months of forced labor from 2002 to 2005 and was sentenced to nine years in prison in 2012.
Ms. Liu Yulian, 77, from Linqing City, Shandong Province, was arrested on May 12, 2026, and secretly sentenced to three years 13 days later.
Mr. Zhou Zixian, 70 and a retiree from Hengyang City Petroleum Company in Hunan Province, was arrested on March 31, 2024, and sentenced to eight years on December 31, 2025. He previously served a six-year prison term.
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