Officials Worldwide Call for End to 27-Year Persecution; Chinese Prison Blocks Autopsy After Death in Custody

Dear Reader,

This summer, Falun Gong practitioners around the globe once again gathered for rallies, parades, and candlelight vigils to call for an end to the CCP’s brutal persecution that began on July 20, 1999. Falun Gong believers’ resolve to persist in their faith despite 27 years of repression has come at an enormous cost: over 5,300 documented deaths, an unknown number of victims of state-run forced organ harvesting, and countless broken families, separated spouses, and practitioners forced to flee their homeland.

Yet their resilience, sustained year after year through the principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion and Forbearance,” has also won growing admiration around the world. This year, we are heartened to hear a strong chorus of support from governments and officials across countries and political parties, calling for an end to the 27-year persecution, for accountability for perpetrators, and for pushback against the regime’s transnational repression.

Also in this issue:

• A 45-year-old Falun Gong practitioner died three days after being admitted to a Liaoning prison; authorities have unlawfully blocked her family’s autopsy request for seven months.

• A New York music student calls for the release of his mother facing trial in Hebei for practicing Falun Gong.

• Why is Falun Gong persecuted in China? Beyond Falun Gong’s popularity, the answer lies in the totalitarian nature of the Chinese communist regime, and then party-leader Jiang Zemin’s personal motivations.

​Finally, I’d like to share a video excerpt in which FDIC Director of Digital Outreach Ben Maloney reflects on 27 years of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong.

Sincerely,

Levi Browde, Executive Director
Falun Dafa Information Center

Government Officials Around the World Voice Support, Call for End to 27-Year Persecution of Falun Gong

What’s new?

Elected officials across four continents spoke out to condemn the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, which marks its 27th anniversary this summer. In the United States, Congressman Pat Ryan (D-NY) addressed close to two thousand practitioners at the annual rally in front of the Lincoln Memorial on July 23. “As long as we hold fast to the belief in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance and keep moving forward, we will ultimately succeed,” he said.

A bipartisan group of U.S. senators and representatives sent letters and video messages. The State Department issued a statement pledging to protect practitioners against the CCP’s transnational repression, and the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC) each issued statements marking the anniversary.

In the run-up to the July 20 anniversary, an additional bipartisan group of senators—Ron Johnson (R-WI), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Mike Rounds (R-SD)—signed onto the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act (S.4009), a bill initially introduced by Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX). The bill would authorize sanctions against those involved in forced organ harvesting in China.

Vocal support for Falun Gong practitioners extended well beyond the United States. In Switzerland, 124 lawmakers from seven cantons jointly signed an Inter-Parliamentary Declaration on Transnational Repression Against Falun Gong Practitioners. More than a dozen German officials at federal, state, and municipal levels sent messages read at rallies in Berlin, Munich, Frankfurt, and Düsseldorf. Elected representatives in Australia, New Zealand, and across Taiwan—where about 1,200 practitioners marched in Taipei on July 25—also condemned the persecution inside and outside China and pledged legislative action against the CCP’s transnational repression.

Why does it matter?

The CCP’s prolonged persecution is being met with a strong chorus of support for Falun Gong practitioners from governments worldwide, spanning officials across parties and regions. They specifically named forced organ harvesting, torture, and transnational repression as ongoing crimes, and several tied their remarks to legislation already in motion.

“The persecution of the Falun Gong is not a closed chapter of history. It is an ongoing crime,” said Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ), CECC Co-Chair and author of the first U.S. resolution condemning the persecution in 1999, in a July 21 statement. “The United States must press for the release of every detained practitioner and sanction the CCP officials responsible for the atrocities committed against the Falun Gong.”

What else do you need to know?

This year, the term “transnational repression” was explicitly named in many officials’ statements. The Falun Dafa Information Center’s latest report presents evidence and analysis showing that the CCP is waging an escalating campaign against Falun Gong on American soil. The report recommends that the U.S. government treat this both as a civil rights and a national security issue and that Congress pass the Falun Gong and Victims of Forced Organ Harvesting Protection Act in 2026.

Left to right upper row: Bill S.4009 sponsor Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX); Co-sponsor Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR); Cosigners Sen. Adam Schiff (D-CA) and Sen. Todd Young (R-IN). Left to right bottom row: Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Sen. Mike Rounds (R-SD) (Minghui.org)

Candles in the Dark: Falun Gong Marks 27 Years of Persecution Worldwide

From Toronto to Kuala Lumpur, from the front of the Lincoln Memorial to the pavement outside the Chinese Embassy in London, Falun Gong practitioners gathered throughout late July to mark the 27^th anniversary of the CCP’s violent campaign against their faith. They lit candles for the dead, held their portraits aloft, and told passersby—many hearing about it for the first time—of the atrocities committed against people whose only offense was to believe in Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance.

The commemorations spanned continents, with gatherings reported in the United States, Canada, South Korea, Malaysia, the United Kingdom, Japan, and Australia, among others. Wherever they were held, the message was the same: the persecution has not ended, and neither has the resolve to see it stopped.

Colleen Thiel, a tourist watching the candlelight vigil at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., could not reconcile the cruelty with the belief behind it. “To torture and imprison people whose core belief is kindness is completely incomprehensible to me,” she said.

Daughter Dies Three Days After Admission to Prison; Authorities Block Independent Autopsy

Ms. Chen Yan, a 45-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Benxi City, Liaoning Province, died on Nov. 8, 2025—just three days after being admitted to Liaoning Province Women’s Prison to serve a five-year sentence for her faith. In the seven months since, the prison has blocked her family’s attempt at an independent autopsy. Her body remains at a funeral home without any official cause-of-death documentation released.

Ms. Chen’s hospital emergency record from the morning of her death listed no detectable pulse, no breathing, and fixed, dilated pupils on arrival—clinical signs of a patient already dead, which contradicts the prison guards’ account that she had been taken to the hospital for treatment. During an external examination, her parents observed a swollen right arm, an abnormally curved right leg suggesting a fracture, two bowl-sized areas of skin necrosis, and black fluid oozing from her mouth and nose. Ms. Chen had been transferred to the prison unable to walk after 16 months of abuse in detention, and had lost more than half her body weight since her arrest.

Chinese regulations permit families to commission an independent autopsy, but the prison rejected the Beijing-based agency the family chose. Local agencies, lawyers, and additional experts they subsequently engaged have all reportedly withdrawn after being pressured or threatened.

New York Music Student Calls for Release of His Mother Facing Trial in Hebei

Pictured: Sam Sun and his mother, Wang Xiaomei.

On December 9, 2025, Wang Xiaomei, an elementary school teacher and the mother of a New York music student, was intercepted by plainclothes police outside her home in Shijiazhuang City, Hebei Province, and forced back inside as officers ransacked her apartment without a warrant. She was taken to the Shijiazhuang City Second Detention Center, where she remains. The Jinzhou City Court accepted the prosecutor’s indictment on June 23, 2026, and she now awaits trial for practicing Falun Gong.

Her son, Sam Sun, who was born and raised in China and now studies music in New York, is speaking out publicly for her immediate release. In an April 2026 interview with the Falun Dafa Information Center, he said, “I hope the [U.S.] government can pay attention to my mom’s case and stop the persecution.” 

Have you read this? Why is Falun Gong persecuted in China?

What drove the CCP’s crackdown on Falun Gong in July 1999? It is often assumed to be the practice’s sheer popularity—an estimated 70 to 100 million people practiced it, exceeding the Party’s own membership and viewed by the CCP as a threat. That is part of the picture, but several other key factors were at work.

At the root is the nature of the regime itself. Unlike an authoritarian system, a totalitarian one demands absolute control over all public and private life—any independent force must be absorbed or destroyed. After withdrawing in 1996 from the state-run qigong association, Falun Gong had become the largest civil society group in China outside Party control. Moreover, those practicing spanned professions, provinces, and some even worked within the party-state. Falun Gong’s core principles of “Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance” were also the direct opposite of a communist culture that rules through deceit and struggle, and its moral code posed a natural threat to the Party’s violent, Leninist tactics for controlling society.

Moreover, driving the policy was one man: then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin, who, according to Washington Post reporting at the time, alone decided Falun Gong “must be eliminated” over the objections of other members of the Politburo Standing Committee. He reportedly did so to shore up his own shaky standing within the Party.

In this excerpt from live coverage of the 2026 Washington, D.C. Rally and March to End the Persecution of Falun Gong on July 23, FDIC Director of Digital Outreach Ben Maloney shared his reflections on the 27th anniversary of the CCP’s persecution of Falun Gong, considering both the tragedy of the repression but also the hope illustrated by practitioners’ long-standing peaceful resistance.