79-Year-Old Woman Secretly Sentenced to Three Years for Talking about Falun Gong

According to reports from Minghui and Weiquanwang, Ms. Sun Xiuzhen, a 79-year-old resident of Yingkou City, Liaoning Province, was admitted to Liaoning Province Women’s Prison to serve a three-year term for talking to people about Falun Gong, a spiritual practice targeted by the Chinese authorities since 1999.

Ms. Sun’s efforts are part of Falun Gong practitioner’s broader information campaign. This awareness-raising generally addresses four key areas: debunking demonizing CCP propaganda about Falun Gong, exposing the rights abuses perpetrated against practitioners, contextualizing the persecution within the Party’s history of atrocities, and encouraging people to quit the CCP­­­, distancing themselves from its crimes.

Police arrested Ms. Sun in July 2020 for talking to people at a local fair in Gaizhou City, Liaoning Province. She was held for seven days before being released on bail, during which police raided her home and seized Falun Gong magazines.

Two years later, she was re-arrested on August 20, 2023, without her family being notified, making them seek information about her whereabouts.

In mid-February 2024, Ms. Sun’s family received confirmation of her three-year sentence and subsequent transfer from Yingkou City Detention Center to Liaoning Province Women’s Prison. However, details regarding her sentencing and prison transfer remain unclear.

Despite the risk, Ms. Sun has spent decades advocating for the right to freely practice Falun Gong. In February 2001, amidst the early stages of the persecution, she traveled to Beijing to appeal to the government. Subsequently arrested and returned to Yingkou, she persisted in raising awareness about the persecution.