(Minghui.org) Ms. Tang Tianmin, 71, who lives in Luzhou City, Sichuan Province, returned home on May 22, 2026, after serving a 4.5-year prison term because she practices Falun Gong.
Ms. Tang, who lives alone, suddenly went missing around November 20, 2021. Her family were unable to learn what happened to her. Only when other Falun Gong practitioners who were released from the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison (located in the capital city of Chengdu) said that they saw Ms. Tang there, did her family know about her prison sentence.
After she was released from prison in May 2026, Ms. Tang told her family that she was arrested by Li Xiongming and a few other officers from the Yongning Police Station. They broke in with the excuse that she needed to be tested for COVID-19. One officer held her down on the sofa, while the rest of them ransacked her home. The police didn’t present a search warrant or confirm the confiscated items with her.
Ms. Tang was first given two weeks of quarantine at the Hejiang County Detention Center, and then she was transferred to the Luzhou City Detention Center. One month later, she was taken to the Naxi District Court for a hearing. Prior to that, she didn’t receive any notice from the procuratorate regarding her indictment, nor was she given the opportunity to hire a lawyer.
During the trial, Ms. Tang learned that her “crime” was “giving three students a flash drive with information about Falun Gong.” She testified in her own defense, maintaining that she didn’t violate any law in practicing her faith or talking to people about it. The judge accused her of “committing a crime again within five years” (she was previously twice sentenced for practicing Falun Gong, in 2012 and 2017, respectively) and sentenced to four and a half years with a 10,000-yuan fine.
Prior to her latest sentencing, Ms. Tang was given two labor camp terms (in 2004 and 2008, respectively) totaling 3.5 years. She was sentenced to three years in prison in 2012 and another two and a half years in 2017. Like her third prison sentence, her two prior sentences were handed down secretly. She was not allowed legal representation, and she and her family received no notice of her indictment nor were they allowed to attend the hearing.
When she was released in 2019 after serving the second prison sentence, her eyes were dull, her reactions were slow, her body kept shaking, and her memory was slipping. She remained bedridden for months before she was back on her feet.
Following her third prison admission in 2021, Ms. Tang was again subjected to various torture methods, including being forced to stand in front of a TV and watch propaganda videos that smeared Falun Gong. She was also not allowed to use toilet paper and she was forced to sign statements renouncing Falun Gong. The mental distress caused her body to shake uncontrollably. The prison doctor forced her to take increasingly large doses of psychiatric drugs, which worsened her condition and caused her to become incapacitated again.
When Ms. Tang was recently released from prison on May 22, 2026, the prison forbade her from taking the verdict with her, similar to her previous two sentences. The court and procuratorate also refused to provide photocopies of the verdicts. She only remembered that the prosecutor who indicted her was named Luo Wen.
When Ms. Tang returned home, she found that the court froze her bank account to collect the 10,000-yuan fine. It’s unclear why the court didn’t unfreeze her account after the money was withdrawn.
When Ms. Tang finished her second prison term in 2019, she was ordered by the Social Security Bureau to return the 60,000 yuan pension she received while she was incarcerated. The Social Security Bureau threatened to sell her apartment or put her back into prison if she didn’t return the money.
Not wanting her mother to be jailed again, Ms. Tang’s daughter borrowed 21,000 yuan to pay back the Social Security Bureau and agreed to have the rest deducted from Ms. Tang’s monthly pension until the total amount was paid off, leaving Ms. Tang with only 500 yuan a month to live on. During her third prison term, the monthly 500-yuan pension was further suspended.
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