A Quarter Century of Persecution, Over 5,000 Confirmed Deaths of Falun Gong Practitioners

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Dec. 18, 2023 | By a Minghui correspondent

(Minghui.org) Ms. Xu Xinyang, around 21, grew up feeling different than other children. While other kids had both of their parents, she did not see her father for the first time until she was seven, when he was serving the last year of an 8-year term for practicing Falun Gong, an ancient spiritual and meditation discipline. Her father, Mr. Xu Dawei, wanted to hold her. But she was scared and hid in her mother’s arms. She said this is the biggest regret of her life.

When her father was released one year later, in February 2009, Ms. Xu was still afraid of getting close to him because his body was covered with scars. He had a hard time breathing. Sometimes his mind was clear, sometimes not. After spending thirteen days with the family, he passed away at the age of 36.

Mr. Xu was neither the first nor the most recent Falun Gong practitioner who has died as a result of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP)’s persecution of their faith. As of November 20, 2023, 5,010 practitioners have been confirmed to have lost their lives over the past 24 years. The passing of Ms. Chen Ying, a 17-year-old high school student in Jiamusi City, Heilongjiang Province, was the first death documented by Minghui.org.

The actual death toll is believed to be much higher given the extreme censorship in China. Many more innocent Falun Gong practitioners were victimized in the CCP’s forced organ harvesting crimes. Based on estimates of 60,000-100,000 transplants performed in China by major hospitals every year, the death toll in the past 24 years could potentially add up to millions.

The shocking brutality in the killing of the 5,010 known men and women paints a picture of the communist regime’s bloody slaughter of law-abiding citizens for their faith, after the world pledged “Never Again” to the Holocaust and other genocides.

With Falun Gong being labeled as the top “state enemy” by the CCP, government officials at every level across the country were mobilized to carry out the persecution per the former CCP chairman Jiang Zemin’s three policies, “defame their [Falun Gong practitioners] reputation, bankrupt them financially, and destroy them physically.” As a result of the extreme eradication policy, death cases of Falun Gong practitioners were reported in every one of the 22 provinces, 4 municipalities and 5 autonomous regions in China.

The northeastern region of China, where Falun Gong was first introduced to the public, had the highest death toll compared to other parts of the country. This could be a result of the higher numbers of practitioners and their fearless efforts in raising awareness about the persecution that resulted in escalated retaliation, as well as the region’s close proximity to Beijing.

Heilongjiang, the northernmost province, reported the highest death toll of 646; Liaoning, another northeastern province, had the second highest cases of 629; Hebei, China’s sixth most populous province that surrounds Beijing, had the third most death cases of 650; Jilin, the birthplace of Falun Gong, ranked the fourth with 530 death cases; and Shandong, the second most populous and an agricultural province, had 464 cases.

After the top five provinces, another seven regions, including Sichuan, Hubei, Henan, Hunan, Beijing, Chongqing and Guangdong, also had three-digit cases ranging from 107 to 320. The remaining nineteen regions, had cases between 1 and 94.

Nine practitioners’ provinces were unknown and they were excluded from the rest of the analysis in this report.

Among the 5,001 practitioners whose provinces were known, 2,728 (54.5%) were female, 2,226 (44.5%) were male, and 47 (0.9%) had unknown gender. In terms of age distribution, 11 of the 5,001 practitioners were 19 or younger at the time of their deaths, 20 were 90 or older, 417 had unknown ages, and the rest of them were between 20 and 89. The youngest was 15, and the oldest practitioner was Ms. Jia Yuzhi, a 98-year-old resident of Xuchang City, Henan Province.

The causes of deaths of the 5,001 practitioners included torture (3,370), involuntary drug administration (161), harassment and mental trauma (1,292), and disappearance/displacement/other (178). Of note, many deceased practitioners were subjected to more than one type of persecution, and the distribution by causes of deaths was based on the most severe harm that was inflicted on them.

Among the 3,531 (=3,370+161) deaths due to torture or involuntary drug administration, 1,326 took place when the practitioners were still in-custody, including 1,287 cases as a result of torture and 39 cases of involuntary drug administration. Out of the 1,326 in-custody deaths, 358 took place in prisons, 322 in detention centers, 307 in police stations, 207 in forced labor camps, 53 in brainwashing centers, 29 in psychiatric hospitals, 25 in 610 Office, and another 25 in other government agencies. Some practitioners were beaten to death, hours or days following their arrests. Extreme cases of practitioners being cremated alive were also reported.

Out of the 3,531 practitioners who died of torture or involuntary drug administration, another 2,083 and 122 practitioners died at home from the torture and involuntary drug administration they endured in custody, respectively. In many cases, the prisons or detention centers released the practitioners on medical parole, only when they were on the verge of death. And the practitioners passed away within hours, days, or months afterwards.

A total of 1,292 practitioners passed away due to the mental distress, either after enduring repeated harassment, living in fear for years, or being dealt a hard blow when their loved ones died as a result of persecution for practicing in Falun Gong. Another 178 deaths included practitioners who disappeared in the persecution, passed away after being forced to live away from home to avoid the persecution, as well as three deaths that took place during the practitioners’ court hearings.

Although these practitioners have lost their physical bodies, their spirit of standing up for the truth and justice lives on and continues to inspire more practitioners to carry on and persevere in raising awareness about the atrocities. Despite the ongoing persecution, more and more people have come to understand the facts about Falun Gong and joined the practitioners in resisting the CCP’s authoritarian rules. Only when communism is completely cast out of China can Falun Gong practitioners and the rest of the Chinese people enjoy true freedom and live a peaceful life without fear and terror.

Challenges in Investigating the Persecution Deaths

While the CCP spares no efforts in persecuting Falun Gong, they are also doing everything possible to cover up the killings and suppression.

• Destroying Direct Evidence

The remains of practitioners tortured to death are sometimes cremated without their families’ knowledge. When the families do receive notice of their loved ones’ passing, they often have to watch the bodies being taken away for cremation against their will. The police either coerce families into signing consent forms or simply forge the signatures themselves. In some cases, the police do not even bother to obtain consent.

• Removing Peripheral Evidence

After a practitioner’s death due to torture, the authorities often transfer to different posts the individuals (perpetrators and enablers alike) involved in the torture, killing, and cremation of the deceased. Physical evidence, including documents, audio and video clips, medical records, and even the practitioner’s photos and household registration card, is destroyed. Sometimes the authorities go so far as to arrest or kill eyewitnesses of the torture or killing.

• Prohibiting Evidence Collection

The authorities also use every means possible to prevent the families from gathering evidence of torture and killing. Families are prohibited from taking pictures and/or videotaping the bodies. They cannot hire their own medical examiners to perform independent autopsies, either.

• Blocking News of Deaths

The authorities work hard to keep people from publicly mourning the deceased for fear of widespread dissemination of news of the practitioner’s death due to torture. Family members, neighbors, coworkers, and friends are often threatened to remain silent. Many of the families were threatened for trying to find out the cause of death and seeking justice for their loved ones.

• Cases of Forced Cremation

Ms. Zhao Jing, then 19, from Jilin Province, was beaten to death following her arrest in Beijing for petitioning the central government to stop persecuting Falun Gong. The police cremated her body on the same day and didn’t allow her father to photograph her body, which was covered with marks of beatings.

Ms. Zhao Jing

Mr. Shi Zhongya from Liaoning Province died three days after a force-feeding session in April 2003. He was 45. Shortly after Mr. Shi’s death, police seized his body in front of his family and took it to the crematorium before dawn. The police told his family that if they wanted to see his body, they had to obtain approval from them first. Four days later, the police had his body cremated against the family’s will, and his ashes were not even returned to the family.

Mr. Shi Zhongya

Ms. Zhang Dezhen, a 38-year-old high school teacher in Mengyin County, Shandong Province was beaten to death at Mengyin County Detention Center on January 29, 2003. The perpetrators told her family that she had died from a heart attack.

Agents from the Mengyin 610 Office ordered the police to have her cremated quickly. When her brother Mr. Zhang Dewen refused to sign the paperwork, he was savagely beaten. He was ultimately forced to sign the cremation agreement.

Practitioner Ms. Liu Shufen witnessed the guards beating Ms. Zhang. A few days following Ms. Zhang’s death, the police said Ms. Liu needed to have an operation on her brain, claiming she had a brain disease. She died on the operating table as a result of bleeding in the brain. She was 39.

After Ms. Zhang and Ms. Liu’s deaths, police went to their homes and seized all of their photos.

Ms. Zhang Dezhen

Unimaginable Cruelty

In the following cases, the authorities were so desperate to kill the practitioners that they burned them to death, pushed them down from high buildings, or cremated them even before they died.

• Covered with Gasoline and Burned to Death

Because Ms. Wang Huajun, 30, of Baiguo Town, Hubei Province, declared to nullify a statement that she was forced to sign in a brainwashing center to renounce Falun Gong, Xu Shiqian, the head of the Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), beat her until she lost consciousness. Police officers dragged her to Jinqiao Square in front of the city administration building. After pouring gasoline on her and burning her to death, officers told the public that Ms. Wang committed suicide by self-immolation.

According to a witness, Ms. Wang was lying on the ground when the fire started. She moved a bit and tried to get up but was too weak. Police officers at the scene panicked, worrying that she would call out and show what truly happened.

Ms. Wang was survived by her two young sons. When village residents looked at her body, they only found burns on her front, not her back. She was missing an ear and had deep knife cuts in her throat and the back of her head.

Three male practitioners who knew about this incident were later arrested, tied to motorcycles, and pulled at high speed until they died.

Ms. Wang Huajun

• Murder Disguised as Suicide

Ms. Su Qionghua, 32, was a Falun Gong practitioner in Suining City, Sichuan Province. Police from Suining City and the Chuanshan District went to her home on December 17, 2000. Ms. Su refused to open the door and police surrounded the building for three days, yelling that they would kill her.

When Ms. Su was talking to 300 or so onlookers about what happened, a police officer broke in at about 6:30 p.m. on December 20 and kicked her. When she grabbed the officer’s foot with both hands, the officer kicked her again and knocked her down. She fell from the sixth floor. The bystanders were stunned and called out, “The police killed her! The police killed her!”

After Ms. Su fell, the police did not do anything to assist her. Instead, they carried her, who was still alive, and put her in a safety net. They announced that she committed suicide by jumping from the building and that the police rescued her with the net. Before leaving with her body, they took photos and waited until she had died.

Ms. Su Qionghua

• Cremated Alive

Mr. Jiang Xiqing, a former officer with the Jingjin City Tax Administration in Chongqing, was beaten by Xishanping Forced Labor Camp guards in January 2009 and lost consciousness. The guards announced that he died of a heart disease on January 28 that year.

After his family was notified of his death, they went to the crematorium. When they pulled Mr. Jiang’s drawer out of the ice locker, Jiang Hong, his son-in-law, noticed Mr. Jiang’s face and chest were still warm. “My father-in-law is still alive!” he cried out. Other family members also noticed this.

Police officers tried to push Mr. Jiang back into the drawer, but the family resisted and called the police hotline for help. The officers on site pushed the family out of the room and pushed Mr. Jiang back into the drawer and had him cremated while he was still alive.

Mr. Jiang Xiqing and his wife Luo Zehui

Tortured to Death

To force practitioners to renounce Falun Gong, the authorities often apply multiple forms of torture at the same time, including beatings, shocking with electric batons, forced-feeding, hanging by the wrists, sleep deprivation, and others. The total documented torture methods were over 100.

• Numerous Scars from Electric Shocks on the Body

Ms. Huang Meiling was arrested on November 30, 2011 and tortured in custody before being released. When her son went to visit her on December 4, 2011, he was shocked to find his mother lying unconscious on the bathroom floor at home. He called an ambulance and took her to the hospital. There were numerous burn scars on her head, underarms, inner thighs, buttocks, arms and legs. Her son asked the doctor to identify the cause of the scars. But the doctor wouldn’t say anything, though they were obviously caused by electric shocks.

During the hospitalization, Ms. Huang never opened her eyes or recounted what happened to her. The doctor said that she had fluid in the brain and kidney and her stomach was bleeding. After six days of treatment, Ms. Huang, of Wuhan City, Hubei Province, passed away at 4 a.m. on December 10, 2011, at the age of 63.

Her neighbors saw her on November 29, 2011, but found her missing the next day.

Ms. Huang Meiling and a scar on her leg

• Savage Beating

Following his arrest in January 2001, Mr. Chen Guibin, then 35, was taken to the security office at his workplace and savagely beaten by four security guards. Two bones in his neck were broken, and his body became paralyzed. After the beating, the guards threw him outside and had him lie in the snow for more than an hour.

When he was eventually sent to the hospital, it was too late: he had difficulty breathing, and was suffering from dehydration and an inability to urinate. In extreme pain, he passed away on February 7, 2001.

Mr. Chen Guibin, of Wucheng County, Shandong Province, and his family

• Heilongjiang Internist Beaten to Death

Dr. Wang Shukun, a 66-year-old physician in Haining City, Heilongjiang Province, was ordered to renounce Falun Gong in late June 2020. As she refused to comply, the police beat her for hours. She suffered sharp pain in her leg and begged the officers to let her go. They agreed, but threatened that they would come for her again a few days later.

Dr. Wang crawled up the stairs to get back to her apartment unit. Her husband noted that she had bruises on her body. Her kneecaps were broken, and she was soaked in sweat. She suffered a cerebral hemorrhage in the afternoon of July 1. She was very dizzy and felt like throwing up. She passed away at around 4:25 a.m. on July 2, 2020.

• Woman Viciously Beaten, Dies 16 Days after Arrest

Ms. Li Ling of Penglai City, Shandong Province, was seized by a village official and paramilitary soldiers on June 28, 2020, after being reported for possessing Falun Gong literature. She was taken to an empty house in a mountainous area and viciously beaten. Her mouth was severely injured and she lost a number of teeth as a result of the beatings. There was a contusion on her left rib cage and she had bruises all over her body. According to an elderly villager who was told to watch her, one of the soldiers also jabbed Ms. Li hard on the chest with a stick.

Ms. Li still refused to give up the practice or answer questions. One of her tormentors took her outside to “fix her up.” He kicked her so hard that she lost her balance and hit her hip on a rock. When it later started to rain, he made her stand in the rain for a long time. She went on a hunger strike to protest the abuse.

Ms. Li was rushed to a private clinic on July 13, 2020 for emergency treatment and was pronounced dead on arrival. She was 55.

• Death as a Result of More than Ten Hours of “Anchor Torture”

Mr. Li Xiwang was taken to the Gangbei Prison (now known as Binhai Prison) in Tianjin on July 18, 2011, to serve an 8-year term. He was subjected to the “ground anchors” on July 29. In the torture, the victim’s legs were kept straight and fixed, while his hands were shackled to the ground. His back was arched and his legs were immobilized. While the maximum endurance for the inmates was two hours, Mr. Li was anchored for over 10 hours, before he was found to have died by midnight. He was 49.

Torture illustration: “ground anchors”

• Family Suspects Foul Play in 72-year-old Man’s Sudden Death in Jidong Prison

Mr. Wang Jian, a resident of Zunhua City, Hebei Province, was arrested at home on July 6, 2019 and later sentenced to seven years in prison with a 5,000-yuan fine. He appeared to be fine and in good spirits when his family visited him on March 19, 2023. However, the family received a surprise phone call from the prison on April 3, 2023 with the news of his death. He was 72 years old.

Mr. Wang had large areas of deep bruises around his ears and on his back, as well as some bruises on the back of his right hand. There was a circular mark on his chest and some scratches on his back. When the coroner turned his body over, fluid came out of his left ear.

The prison claimed that Mr. Wang died suddenly of a disease, but without specifying the disease. To the family, the bruises on Mr. Wang’s head and back seemed unusual and not caused by a normal disease. They asked if they were caused by torture or other mistreatment that the prison was trying to hide.

• Bakery Owner Dies After 90 Days of Torture in Detention Center

Mr. Wang Haijin from Qinhuangdao City, Hebei Province was arrested at his bakery on April 22, 2014, and taken to Funing County Detention Center. During the 90 days he was held there, he was force-fed, savagely beaten, sexually abused, and made to do forced labor.

Mr. Wang Haijin

This 5’10’’ tall man lost 60 pounds in the detention center, weighing only 140 pounds by the time he was released. He often vomited after eating, even if he drank only water. Even a month after he returned home, Mr. Wang couldn’t sleep at night due to flashbacks of being tortured during his detention. While lying in bed, his limbs would uncontrollably stretch out to the sides, as if he were being force-fed. Unable to eat or sleep well, he remained very weak. He passed away on October 9, 2014 at the age of 46.

Psychiatric Abuse and Involuntary Drug Administration on Falun Gong Practitioners

Many people have heard of the gas chambers in Nazi concentration camps, but they may not know that an untold number of Falun Gong practitioners in China have been subjected to psychiatric abuse and human experimentation in the persecution as well. Many practitioners were maimed, driven insane, or even killed as a result.

In China, psychiatric abuse is not limited to mental hospitals as it also took place in prisons, labor camps (abolished in 2013), and detention centers. Healthy practitioners without mental illnesses were drugged, resulting in organ damage and mental disorder. Some of the practitioners were subjected to involuntary drug administration for over 10 years.

The drugs given to practitioners against their will included Dongmianling (chlorpromazine), Dongmian No. 1 (mixture of chlorpromazine, promethazine, meperidine), memory loss medicine, ecstasy, narcotics, aphrodisiacs, clozapine, sulpiride, sodium valproate, buprenorphine, flubutanol, and other unknown substances.

After being administered these nerve-damaging drugs, once-healthy practitioners experienced varying degrees of sleepiness, weakness, sluggish speech and actions, chest tightness, shortness of breath, and rapid decline in memory. Additional symptoms include loss of normal thinking ability, physiological disorders, lethargy, dementia, and mental breakdown. Some drugs directly harmed internal organs, causing such excruciating pain that the victims rolled all over the floor, suffered all-over body cramps, felt as if all of their internal organs were bursting outside of the body, extremely rapid heartbeat, chest and abdomen swelling, or organ failure. Some victims had to slam their heads against the wall due to the extreme pain.

The drugging of Falun Gong practitioners was cruel, vicious, and secretive, as it did not leave physical injuries as corporal punishment would and thus became a commonly used tactic of the CCP to conceal their crimes.

Ms. Zhang Fuzhen was an employee of Xianhe Park in Pingdu City, Shandong Province. The police arrested her and kept her at a brainwashing center in the Pingdu 610 Office. She was tied to a bed in a spread-eagle position for a long time. She had to urinate and defecate in bed. According to a witness, guards removed all her clothes, shaved her hair, tortured her, and humiliated her. They then injected unknown substances in her body, causing her excruciating pain. She struggled in bed until she died in pain. She was 38. Officials at all levels from the 610 Office watched the entire process.

Ms. Zhang Fuzhen

• 33-Year-Old Died Two Days After Release

Mr. Ju Yajun was a farmer in Yuquan Town of Acheng City, Heilongjiang Province. He was very healthy and honest, and was well-respected by the community. For practicing Falun Gong, he was detained in the Changlinzi Forced Labor Camp in Harbin (capital city of the province). On the afternoon of October 21, 2001, he was taken to the labor camp’s health center and forcibly injected with unknown drugs. From then on, Mr. Ju could not lift his head anymore and his mind was no longer clear. Moreover, he often opened his mouth wide, gasped for air, spoke with difficulty, and kept pointing to his arm and saying, “I got an injection, I got an injection...”

To shirk responsibility, the labor camp officials sent him home on October 24, 2001. Two days later, Mr. Ju passed away at age 33.

• The Xinjin Brainwashing Center

The Xinjin Brainwashing Center, also known as “Xinjin Legal Education Center,” was located in Huaqiao Town of Xinjin County, Sichuan Province. It used various methods such as mental torture, intimidation, psychological manipulation, violence, and involuntary drug administration to force Falun Gong practitioners to renounce their faith. At least seven practitioners died at the brainwashing center, and five of the deaths were caused by involuntary drug administration.

Mr. Xie Deqing, 69, was a retired employee of Chengdu Survey and Design Research Institute in Sichuan Province. On the morning of April 29, 2009, Mr. Xie and his wife were arrested in Chengdu and taken to Xinjin Brainwashing Center. In just over 20 days, Mr. Xie, who was in good health and had a radiant face, was tortured to the point of being on the verge of death. He was skinny, out of shape, suffered urinary incontinence, had trouble swallowing, and developed severe angina pectoris (chest pain). He was then released. In the four days since he returned home, he was in a coma most of the time. In the coma, he pressed on his chest, tossing and moaning in pain, as if his internal organs were being torn. He died on the evening of May 27, 2009. His hands turned black, and his body gradually turned black, an indication of drug poisoning.

Mr. Xie Deqing (before arrest)

Mr. Xie Deqing (after death)

• Drug-administration Victims in Wuhan’s Yusun Mountain Brainwashing Center

In the past two decades, the Yusun Mountain Brainwashing Center in Wuhan City, Hubei Province, has been actively persecuting Falun Gong practitioners. Practitioners held in the center are routinely starved and poisoned.

Ms. Yu Yimin suffered a mental collapse after being injected with unknown drugs there. She initially felt pain radiating from her feet, and then gradually lost her memory, the feeling in her feet, and the ability to walk. The guards at the brainwashing center also beat her savagely and hit her head against a wall. She passed away on August 5, 2011, at the age of 49.

Ms. Yu Yimin before the persecution

Ms. Yu Yimin developed a mental disorder as a result of the persecution

Mr. Wang Jinping, 42, recounted that while he was held at the brainwashing center in March 2015, the guards added some unknown drug to his food, and even put the drug in his pillow and comforter. He couldn’t fall asleep. He had pain all over his body and his eyes became dull.

Not Even the Elderly Are Spared

While respecting the elderly remained one of the most important virtues in China for thousands of years, it was no longer so after the CCP took on power in 1949. In the persecution of Falun Gong, elderly practitioners are even more vulnerable to the physical and mental torture with their advanced age.

• 82-Year-Old Woman Dies Hours After Being Arrested for Distributing Falun Gong Informational Materials

Ms. Guo Zhenxiang, from Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province, was arrested on January 11, 2019, as she handed out informational materials about Falun Gong at a bus station. Within several hours, the police notified her family that she had died during detention.

Her son knew that Ms. Guo had been very healthy and suspected the death was caused by torture. He hired two lawyers to seek justice for his mother. Local officials threatened to suspend the lawyers’ licenses if they investigated the case. In addition, the officials tapped the lawyers’ phones and dispatched agents to follow them 24 hours a day. The lawyers felt like they had no choice but to quit.

• No Food, No Access to Toilet, and No Sleep

Ms. Li Guirong, Principal of Hezuo Elementary School in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, was once recognized as one of the best principals in the region. Because she practiced Falun Gong, however, she was arrested in October 2006 and later sentenced to seven years in prison.

After being arrested again in February 2015, Ms. Li was sentenced to five years by Hunnan Court and sent to Liaoning Women’s Prison. In Ward 5, designated to detain the elderly and infirm, the guards and inmates beat her savagely and hit her hands with their shoes. Ms. Li was left with bruises all over.

An inmate once grabbed Ms. Li by the hair and dragged her around the room. Lots of her hair came out that day. Guards and inmates also forced her to squat motionless, once for 36 hours and another time for more than 60 hours. To force her to give up her belief in Falun Gong, they deprived her of food and sleep and denied her restroom use during that time. Ms. Li died in January 2020 at the age of 78.

• Inmates: “Make Your Life a Living Hell”

Mr. Gong Piqi was the former Deputy Chief of Staff of the Reserve Antiaircraft Artillery Division in Shandong Province. Under instructions from Qingdao Political and Legal Affairs Committee (PLAC), 610 Office, and Shibei Domestic Security Bureau, the Shibei Procuratorate indicted him and the Shibei Court sentenced him to seven and a half years on July 20, 2018. He was ordered to serve time in Shandong Prison in Jinan.

He died in prison on April 12, 2021. He was 66. His family saw wounds on his head, which was also wet and swollen. There was blood dripping out of his ears.

Shandong Prison is notorious for torturing Falun Gong practitioners. Many practitioners were killed, disabled, and injured there. Instigated by the guards to torture practitioners, some inmates said, “We were told not to kill you, but to make your life a living hell – so you would rather die than live.”

• “We Will Let Him Die Inside This Time!”

When Mr. Liu Xiyong’s wife sought his release at the local police station following his arrest on April 9, 2018, an officer said to her, “We will let him die inside this time!” He was later sentenced to three years.

On April 9, 2021, when Mr. Liu’s family went to the prison to pick him up, they were devastated to learn that the 80-year-old man had been taken away by the police. He was then sentenced to another four years. Four months later, he developed diabetes and fluid accumulation in his chest. The authorities handcuffed and shackled him to the hospital bed while he was being treated.

Mr. Liu, a resident of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, developed another serious medical condition on December 9, 2021. He was in a wheelchair that was placed inside a metal cage in the back of the van while he was taken to the hospital. His family was surprised to see that Mr. Liu’s face, hands, and feet were all swollen. He appeared to be incapacitated and was unable to talk clearly. When his granddaughter tried to adjust his face mask, the guards intimidated her and didn’t allow the family to get close.

Mr. Liu passed away in the hospital on December 29, 2021. The prison staff did not allow his son to take his body. They took it to a funeral home themselves, fearing that his family would file a complaint against them. The police guarded his body until it was cremated on January 1, 2022.

Mr. Liu Xiyong

• After Two Prison Terms and Relentless Harassment, 87-year-old Displaced Man Dies Weeks After Returning Home

Mr. Luo Zhenggui was a retired government official from Shibao Town in Gulin County, Sichuan Province. He took up Falun Gong in April 1999. He credited the practice with curing his stomach cancer, as well as many other problems such as pneumonia, bronchitis, and nephritis.

After the persecution started, Mr. Luo and his wife were sentenced twice for upholding their faith. Mr. Luo had his pension suspended and his home raided.

Mr. Luo’s last arrest was on November 5, 2021, when he was on his way home after visiting a bank. The police smashed the lock on his rental apartment and raided the place. To avoid further persecution, he and his wife lived away from home.

When Mr. Luo’s health started to decline while on the run, he and his wife returned home. But shortly after that, he passed away on July 6, 2022.

Young Lives Cut Short

Besides the elderly practitioners, the persecution of the younger generation on the other end of the age spectrum is equally heartbreaking. Many of the younger practitioners shared that practicing Falun Gong helped them to stay away from bad influences from society, focus better on studies and better handle conflicts and difficulties as they transitioned into young adulthood. Yet because of the persecution, many of these young souls perished too early before they got a chance to fully experience life.

• Eighteen-Year-Old Girl Expelled from School, Raped by a Thug, Dies from Tuberculosis after Being Homeless

Ms. Zhang Yichao, a vivacious and open-minded girl deeply loved by her parents, relatives, and friends, was expelled from school because both of her parents practiced Falun Gong and she refused to sign an anti-Falun Gong petition.

After her parents’ company intervened, the school agreed to let her return. However, the school’s Party secretary Meng Xianmin called her in for a conversation every week. He demanded that she write a report each week and distance herself from Falun Gong and her parents.

During the time when both of her parents were detained, a group of children who hated Falun Gong due to the propaganda broke the door and several windows in her home. Yichao, who was at home alone, was scared to death.

A few months later, both of her parents were sent to forced labor camps and Yichao was permanently expelled from school. At the age of 15, she was forced to live away from home and moved frequently to avoid the constant harassment from the authorities. One night, a thug smashed the window, broke into her room, and raped her.

Yichao later contracted tuberculosis when she was doing odd jobs. She did not have any money to see a doctor and was unwilling to go home. On the morning of April 6, 2005, she died in a hospital. She was 18 years old. Eight months after Yichao passed away, on December 17, 2005, her mother Ms. Fu Guiying also died as a result of the persecution.

• 19-Year-Old Beaten to Death

Ms. Chu Congrui went to Beijing on December 1, 2000 to appeal for Falun Gong and was arrested on Tiananmen Square. She died in Beijing’s Haidian Prison on December 13, 2000, at the age of 19. The police claimed that she died as a result of a hunger strike and dehydration. The autopsy, however, showed that she had blood all over her face, and her nose had collapsed. Her face was disfigured as a result of her injuries. Her grandfather went to Beijing to collect her body. When he saw her disfigured face, he lost control and wept aloud as he held his granddaughter’s dead body.

Ms. Chu Congrui

• 15-Year-Old Dies After Heart Condition Recurred

Tang Shiyu was a student at Fucun Elementary School, Dandong City, Liaoning Province. In 1995, the hospital claimed he had only six months to live due to a heart disease he had suffered since early childhood. After he started practicing Falun Gong in 1996, his health improved, and he was able to go to school. After the CCP began persecuting Falun Gong, Tang’s home was ransacked five times. He was detained once and his parents were imprisoned. He was under great pressure and suffered psychological pain. Subsequently, his heart disease recurred. He died on April 25, 2005, at the age of 15.

• 30-Year-Old Former Radio Host Beaten to Death in Prison

A 30-year-old former host of the Sichuan People’s Radio Station was beaten to death on December 2, 2022, while serving a five-year term in Jiazhou Prison, Sichuan Province.

Mr. Pang Xun

Mr. Pang Xun’s body was covered in bruises from the beating, and had marks from electric shocks and being tied up tightly with rope. He had also become incontinent due to the torture.

The prison denied having tortured Mr. Pang, and claimed that he died of hyperthyroidism.

Mr. Pang was arrested on July 27, 2020, for distributing Falun Gong materials, and later sentenced to five years in Jiazhou Prison.

Mr. Pang Xun was covered with bruises when he died.

Families Torn Apart

Families are the cornerstones of any given society. The passing of the practitioners in the persecution also caused their families to fall apart, be it elderly parents losing their adult children, loving couples losing their spouses, or young children orphaned when both of their parents were persecuted to death.

• 9-Year-Old Boy Orphaned

Mr. Wang Kemin was a middle school teacher in Daqing City, Heilongjiang Province. His wife died in a car accident soon after he was arrested and sent to a forced labor camp in 2000. Three years later, he was arrested again while relocating frequently to avoid the persecution. He passed away the very day he was arrested. His son, who was nine years old, became an orphan.

• Family Brought Together and Torn Apart Again

From the time he was three years old, Shao Linyao watched the police take his parents away again and again. He was lonely, terrified, and sad because he missed his family. After his mother Ms. Mu Ping was released on bail after nearly three years of torture in a labor camp, Linyao never left her side, fearing he would lose her again. He didn’t want to go to bed until his mother came home after having gone out. He just sat there until she came home. He said in tears, “I was so afraid that you’d been arrested again by the bad people. If you don’t come back, I can’t calm down.” But little did Linyao know that his dad, Mr. Shao Hui, had already been persecuted to death in 2002.

Ms. Mu was arrested again in 2006 and sentenced to seven years in prison. After his mother’s arrest, Linyao lived with his grandparents, although their health was deteriorating and their lives were difficult.

• Losing Eight Family Members in the Persecution

In her criminal complaint submitted to the Supreme People’s Procuratorate on July 29, 2015 against Jiang Zemin, the former CCP head who ordered the persecution of Falun Gong, a restaurant owner in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, detailed how she lost eight family members in the persecution.

According to Ms. Jia Rongjuan, in her 70s, her young brother Mr. Jia Zhenjie was jailed and tortured in the early years of the persecution; he passed away in 2002. Their mother succumbed to the mental distress from the persecution in 2004, only 15 days before Ms. Jia’s release from a labor camp. In 2006 and 2008, Ms. Jia’s parents-in-law passed away respectively. Within three months between March and June 2010, Ms. Jia lost her sister-in-law, Ms. Wang Limin, her sister, Ms. Jia Rongfen, and husband Mr. He Zhiyong. A year later, in June 2011, Ms. Jia’s other sister-in-law, Ms. Yu Guofen, became her eighth family member who died in the persecution due to the mental agony.

• Husband and Wife Lose Their Lives to the Persecution 16 Years Apart

A widowed man in Dalian City, Liaoning Province, succumbed to two decades of persecution for his faith in Falun Gong and passed away at the age of 56 on January 20, 2021. Mr. Yang Chuanjun’s death was preceded by multiple arrests and two prison sentences for a total of nine years.

Mr. Yang’s wife, Ms. Dai Zhijuan, also a Falun Gong practitioner, had died 16 years ago after enduring years of harassment and torture. Ms. Dai was the senior physician employed by the Dalian City Women and Children’s Hospital. She was arrested when going to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in April 2000 and was held at Masanjia Forced Labor Camp, where she was subjected to beatings, sleep deprivation, forced labor, isolation and monitoring, injection of unknown drugs, and more. She was tortured to the point where she could not take care of herself and was released on medical parole.

The couple was arrested together on April 24, 2002 and Ms. Dai was given a second term at the Masanjia Labor Camp for three years. The torture left her devastated both mentally and physically. She was unable to eat and again released on medical parole. As the police attempted to arrest her again, she was forced to live away from home to avoid the persecution. She passed away on December 21, 2005.

• Elderly Mother Devastated by Daughter’s Passing

Ms. Kong Hongyun, a resident in Baoding City, Hebei Province, fell into a coma on March 8, 2019, while being held at Baoding Detention Center for her faith in Falun Gong. A tracheotomy was done on her without her family’s consent three days later. She never regained consciousness and died on June 12, 2019. She was 47.

Ms. Kong Hongyun

Ms. Kong’s last arrest, and also her 11th arrest in the persecution, took place on January 2, 2019. Her mother in her 80s worked closely with the lawyer to rescue her, but to no avail. The elderly woman was grief-stricken and aged quickly overnight upon hearing about her daughter’s death.

Ms. Kong’s last arrest came only one year after she finished serving a four-year term for talking to people about Falun Gong. Prior to her hearing on December 26, 2014, her elderly mother protested near the entrance of the court, demanding the authorities to release her.

Ms. Kong’s mother protesting near the entrance of the Xinshi District Court prior to her earlier court hearing on December 26, 2014.

• Mother and Son Died Within Two Weeks

Ms. Wang Shouhui and her son, Mr. Liu Boyang, of Changchun City, Jilin Province, were both arrested on October 28, 2005. Mr. Liu, a 29-year-old radiologist, was tortured to death in the evening and the police tossed his body out of the building. A few days later, the police informed his family of his death and claimed that he “committed suicide” and jumped to his death.

An autopsy was conducted upon the family’s request. It showed that his head had three holes made by a blunt instrument, his legs and ribs had fractures and blood was found in his lung. According to medical analysis, the three holes in his head were the cause of his death.

Two weeks after Mr. Liu was killed, his mother was also tortured to death on November 11, 2005. Her eyes were covered with purple bruises, and there was blood in her left ear. She still didn’t know about her son’s death before she died.

Ms. Wang Shouhui

Mr. Liu Boyang

Speaking Out Cost Some Practitioners Their Lives

In the persecution of Falun Gong, the CCP’s all-around propaganda campaign is like the engine oil that keeps the entire apparatus running. By flooding the airwaves, newspapers, and magazines with countless stories vilifying Falun Gong and its founder, Mr. Li Hongzhi, the CCP drafted the entire society into the ranks of the persecutors, creating an environment in which practitioners had no rights and no security. They could be attacked with impunity by anyone for any reason.

Conditioned to hate Falun Gong by the media, it became easy for the Chinese people to turn their heads away when they witnessed injustices taking place, and shut their ears to the cries of the tortured innocents.

In order to debunk the lies and help the Chinese understand the facts about Falun Gong, the persecution and true nature of the CCP, countless Falun Gong practitioners stepped forward to speak out, and some of them lost their lives at the hands of the communist regime.

• Exposing Torture at the Risk of Losing Her Life

Ms. Gao Rongrong, who worked at the Luxun Academy of Fine Arts in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, was shocked with electric batons by guards at the Longshan Forced Labor Camp for six hours on May 7, 2004. Her face was severely burnt and disfigured. While she was hospitalized, several local Falun Gong practitioners managed to rescue her on October 5, 2004. Despite the extreme danger of exposing the torture, Ms. Gao let the practitioners take her photos and submit it to Minghui.org.

Fearing that Ms. Gao would leave China, the CCP established a special task force to track her down. She was arrested again six months later on March 6, 2005. She was held in the prison hospital and starved to death on June 16, 2005. She was 37.

Ms. Gao Rongrong before and after the electric shock torture

• Deaths of Three Minghui Correspondents in China

Mr. Yuan Jiang, who graduated from Tsinghua University, was a teacher. His father was a professor at Northwest Normal University, and his mother was a senior teacher in a middle school. After the regime started the persecution in 1999, Mr. Yuan worked with the practitioners in Gansu Province and took up the role of the main Minghui contributor in that region in the efforts of counteracting the persecution. When he was arrested on September 30, 2001, the police quickly gathered two carloads of torture instruments to interrogate him.

Around October 26, 2001, Mr. Yuan managed to escape from police custody. But due to the unimaginable torture he had suffered, he wasn’t able to walk very far and he hid in a cave. In that cave, he lost consciousness for four days. After he came to, he climbed out of the cave and went to a practitioner’s home. He stayed there until he passed away on November 9, 2001, due to his internal injuries. He was only 29 years old at the time. After he died, the police initiated a large scale search. Many practitioners who had helped Mr. Yuan were arrested, and his parents were closely monitored by the police.

Mr. Yuan Jiang

Mr. Wang Chan used to work at the headquarters of the People’s Bank of China and was known as one of the elite in high-technology. However, he was fired from his job and became homeless in 1999 because of the persecution. Later on, he began to submit persecution articles to Minghui.org and encouraged more practitioners from different cities to join the effort.

Within only a few years, Mr. Wang went to several provinces across China and became one of the main coordinators in the country. He played a vital part in creating and protecting the information channels for the Minghui website. However, Mr. Wang was arrested in Shandong Province on August 21, 2002. One week later, he was tortured to death during an interrogation session on August 28, at the age of 39. After he died, the local police immediately cremated his body.

Mr. Wang Chan

Mr. Li Zhongmin used to work at a foreign company in Dalian City, Liaoning Province. As a Minghui correspondent, he maintained material production sites and often talked to people about the persecution. In order to arrest him, the police dispatched around 180 officers from all the local police stations. He was arrested on January 11, 2002 and later sentenced to 15 years. He endured various torture in the prison, including force feeding, being tied up in a spread-eagle position, being hung up and beaten, and tiger bench. He died on March 4, 2003. He was 31. According to a witness, his body had serious injuries in many places, the back of his head and his inner thighs had large area of bruises, his back had many red spots and his eye sockets were sunken.

Mr. Li Zhongmin

• Intercepting TV Signals in China

Eighteen Falun Gong practitioners tapped into the state cable television broadcast network in Changchun City, Jilin Province at around 8:00 p.m. on March 5, 2002. The programs “Self-immolation or Hoax?” and “Falun Dafa Spreads Worldwide” were broadcast on eight channels simultaneously for about 45 minutes.

Within days, more than 5,000 practitioners in the Changchun area were arrested. Seven of them were beaten to death days later.

Ms. Li Rong, a Jilin University graduate, 35 years old when she died, worked at the Jilin Province Pharmaceutical Research Institute. She was arrested in March 2002 and died while in detention around the end of March or the beginning of April. The details of her death are unknown.

Ms. Shen Jianli, a lecturer at the Department of Applied Mathematics of Jilin University, was arrested the day after the incident. She died around the end of April 2002, at the age of 34.

Ms. Shen Jianli

Mr. Liu Haibo was arrested at his home on the evening of March 11, 2002. Police beat him in front of his wife and son and broke one of his ankles. They tortured and interrogated him until 1:00 a.m. that night, until he had no pulse. Although they rushed him to the hospital, the 34-year-old doctor died during treatment.

Mr. Liu Haibo

A practitioner believed to be in his 30s was beaten to death on March 16, 2002, in Jinchen Police Department in Changchun. According to a witness, he exhibited several visible wounds and showed signs of internal bleeding after the beatings.

Mr. Liu Yi was beaten to death at the age of 34 in the Luyuan District Police Department office.

Mr. Liu Yi

On March 20, 2002, 54-year-old Ms. Li Shuqin was arrested by Changjiu Road Police Station officers and then tortured to death in the 3rd Detention Center in Changchun.

Mr. Hou Mingkai was beaten to death hours after he was arrested at his home on August 20, 2002. He was 34.

In addition to the above mentioned seven practitioners, four more practitioners who took part in the courageous action were also persecuted to death in the years to follow, including Mr. Liu Chengjun, Ms. Li Shuqin, Mr. Lei Ming, and Mr. Liang Zhenxing.

Suspected Victims of Organ Harvesting

Back in March 2006, a Chinese woman, Annie (alias), published a statement in Washington D.C. She said that her ex-husband, a surgeon at the Sujiatun Hospital in Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, had disclosed to her that he had removed cornea from 2,000 living Falun Gong practitioners between 2002 and 2005. Other doctors in the hospital also removed other organs from more practitioners. These victims were killed in the process and their bodies were cremated to destroy the evidence. The organs were sold to wealthy Chinese or foreigners who were in China for transplant tourism.

A non-government organization in Canada contacted human rights lawyer David Matas and the late David Kilgour, former Secretary of State for Asia Pacific, inviting them to conduct an independent investigation into this matter.

After months of investigation, Matas and Kilgour published a 140-page report in July 2006, which drew “the regrettable conclusion that the allegations are true.” They also found that the atrocity didn’t only take place in the hospital Annie’s ex-husband worked for, but in many other hospitals across China.

While no direct victims have lived to tell about the organ harvesting crimes against them, several cases of practitioners’ sunken abdomen or suspicious incisions after their deaths raised suspicions from their families that their loved ones might had fallen victims to this heinous crime.

• Multiple Organs Removed

Mr. Gao Yixi was a Falun Gong practitioner in Mudanjiang City, Heilongjiang Province. Eleven days after his arrest, his family was notified by police that 45-year-old Mr. Gao had “suddenly” died on April 29, 2016.

The next morning, Mr. Gao’s brother saw his body in the autopsy room. Mr. Gao was naked with both eyes open and obvious injuries on the body. When his brother tried to slowly close the eyes, he surprisingly found Mr. Gao had tears at the corner of the eyes.

Although his family refused to sign paperwork, officials went ahead with the autopsy anyway, which was completed at about 7 p.m. that night. His brain, cerebellum, heart, lungs, liver, gallbladder, pancreas, and kidneys were taken away. When the nearly empty corpse was moved to another room for the mortuary cosmetology service, his family surprisingly found a large amount of fresh blood coming out. Several towels were soaked with blood, making the family suspect Mr. Gao was alive when the autopsy occurred.

• Suspicious Incision on the Chest and Back

Mr. He Lifang, a resident in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, died in custody on July 2, 2019, two months after his last arrest for practicing Falun Gong.

Mr. He’s family noticed a sewn-up incision on his chest and an open incision on his back. The police first claimed the incisions were a result of an autopsy before changing their story to say that a medical examiner would come shortly. But no coroner ever showed up.

Mr. He’s loved ones suspect that his organs may have been harvested either while he was still alive or shortly after his death, and that’s the real reason for the incisions. They also suspect psychiatric abuse as he lost his speech and became unresponsive within just 17 days of his detention.

It was estimated that about 200 police officers and over 20 police vans were dispatched between June 30, the day Mr. He was transferred from Pudong Detention Center in the Jimo District to Chengyang Third Hospital, and July 3, 2019, the day after his death. Coming from the Jimo District Police Department and subordinate police stations, these officers carried extra handcuffs and patrolled the hospital and its vicinity. They were ready to arrest anyone who came to the hospital to show support for Mr. He. An officer surnamed Yao from the Beian Neighborhood Committee specifically warned Falun Gong practitioners to stay away.

• Wife Suspected to Have Been a Victim of Organ Harvesting, Husband Killed to Conceal the Truth

Ms. He Xiulin, a 52-year-old Falun Gong practitioner in Yantai City, Shandong Province, was taken to Yantai Yuhuangding Hospital on March 8, 2004 after she was persecuted to the verge of death at Yantai Nanjiao Detention Center.

Two days later, her husband Mr. Xu Chengben received a phone call from Li Wenguang, head of the Zhifu District 610 Office, who said Ms. He was ill and being treated at Yuhuangding Hospital and that Xu could go to visit her. After 7 p.m. that night, Mr. Xu found his wife in the neurology ward. She was on the verge of death and could no longer talk. She was naked from the waist down, one of her hands was cuffed to the head of the bed, and her wrist spotted scars. The hospital diagnosed her with Tuberculous Meningitis. She was not observed being given any treatment or food, and she was guarded by a man and a woman.

At 7 a.m. on March 31, 2004, Li from the 610 Office notified Mr. Xu by phone that Ms. He had died, but he did not allow her family to see or clothe her body. After strong demands from the family, they were finally allowed to see her at the hospital mortuary at 11 a.m. At this point, Ms. He’s hands and feet were still warm, the area around her left eye was black and purple and visibly collapsed, and there was a bandage around her waist.

Ms. He’s younger sister wailed, “Sister, how did you end up like this? Open your eyes and look at me!” While she was yelling, two trails of tears flowed from Ms. He’s eyes. The relatives then saw many beads of sweat appear on He’s face. Seeing that Ms. He was still alive, the relatives went upstairs to plead for doctors to resuscitate her. But the doctors were unusually cold and did not commence resuscitation.

The next day, the relatives were not allowed to see Ms. He. When they were allowed to see her again on the third day, she no longer had a heartbeat or pulse, and her extremities were cold.

When the organ harvesting crime was exposed in March 2006, Mr. Xu became suspicious that his wife was killed for her organs. He posted the information on an overseas website on April 19, 2006, only to be arrested the next day. His son was also forced to cremate Ms. He’s body that had been kept in the morgue.

Mr. Xu was kept in custody. He quickly became emaciated and disoriented. He suddenly died on February 27, 2008. When his family was dressing his body, they noticed that his skin had rotted and stuck to his shirt. They called in a medical examiner, who concluded that Mr. Xu had died of poisoning.

Reference: Twenty-Four Years of Persecution, Twenty-Four Select Death Cases

- Unthinkable Crimes

Case 1: Practitioners Killed by Officials to Cover Up Their Acts of Violence

Case 2: Officials Order Woman of Faith Cremated While She Is Still Alive

Case 3: Eyewitness Exposes “Killing with No Mercy” Policy Following TV Interception to Expose Self-immolation Hoax

- Robbed of Prime and Life Cut Short

Case 4: For Liu Zhimei, Time Stopped Years Ago at Age 21

Case 5: Driven Insane at 22, Deceased at 40

Case 6: 34-Year-Old Woman Tortured to Death Two Months After Her Arrest in 2007

Case 7: Shandong Man Dies in Custody at 45, Family Suspects Psychiatric Abuse and Organ Harvesting

Case 8: A Mother Recounts a Young Man’s Tragic Death and Injustice Suffered for His Belief

- Deaths of Professionals