Mother of Two Dies in Custody as Deaths Linked to Jilin Province Women’s Prison Continue

Ms. Xu Yanhua, a 73-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Changchun City, Jilin Province, died in September 2026 while serving a five-year sentence for her faith. Guards transferred her from Jilin Province Women’s Prison to a designated hospital after she became severely ill, and she died there shortly afterward. She was two months short of her 74th birthday. Her case was reported by Minghui.org on October 2.

Ms. Xu’s was one of two deaths that month linked to the same prison. On September 24, Ms. Zhang Shaoping, about 60, died just 40 days after completing a seven-year term there. According to Minghui.org’s count, at least 45 Falun Gong practitioners had already died in the prison or after their release from it as of May 2026.

A death with no explanation

Ms. Xu was arrested on February 10, 2023, by officers from the Caiyudajie Police Station in Changchun’s Jingyue District. About seven months later she was sentenced to five years in prison and fined 10,000 yuan. Her family was not informed of her indictment or trial, and for months did not know where she was being held. She was later sent to Jilin Province Women’s Prison.

What happened to her there is unknown. In September 2026 she became severely ill. Guards admitted her to a designated hospital, where she died soon after. The prison has not disclosed a cause of death.

Mother and son targeted for decades

Ms. Xu was a retired worker and a single mother of two. Before 1996, she suffered from heart disease, neurasthenia, and cervical spondylosis, as well as lasting injuries from two falls, one of which fractured her sternum. She took up Falun Gong in 1996 and, according to reports, her health recovered and she no longer needed medical treatment. She also dropped plans to sue her ex-husband over unpaid child support.

Her son, Mr. Wang Peng, also took up the practice. In March 1999, months before the nationwide ban, his employer told him to give it up or lose his job. He refused and was dismissed. He was arrested in 2001 and released only after his mother paid 8,000 yuan. In 2005 he was arrested again, deprived of sleep for five nights, force-fed during a hunger strike, and restrained in a straitjacket. He was sentenced to six years.

During his 2005 prosecution, Ms. Xu met the chief prosecutor and the president of the court to plead for her son. According to reports, both told her the same thing: they had no authority over Falun Gong cases. Decisions were made by the Political and Legal Affairs Committee and the 610 Office, the extralegal bodies that direct the persecution.

In May 2022, Ms. Xu was arrested and then released, after which she lived away from home to avoid further arrest. On July 20, 2022, police searching for her raided her son’s home instead. They arrested Mr. Wang, his wife, and a visiting practitioner. Mr. Wang was sentenced to a further one and a half years at a hearing held inside the detention center. Seven months later, Ms. Xu herself was taken.

A second death in September

Ms. Zhang Shaoping, of Siping City, was arrested on August 15, 2019, in a sweep in which police from Siping and Lishu County arrested a large group of practitioners and their relatives. She was tried in the Lishu County Court on September 28, 2020, and sentenced to seven years on February 26, 2021. She was transferred to Jilin Province Women’s Prison on May 27, 2021.

She was released on August 14, 2026. On September 24 she died suddenly. Her family does not know what she endured in the prison. She had previously served two forced labor terms totaling two years, during which she was frequently beaten.

Ms. Fu Guihua, who was arrested in the same 2019 sweep and sentenced in the same case, entered the prison on the same day as Ms. Zhang. According to Minghui.org, she was placed in a “strict management” cell for 43 days, then moved to a cell used for intensive coercion. She died three days later, on July 25, 2021, less than two months after admission. The prison did not allow her family to see her body before it was cremated.

At least 45 deaths

Jilin Province Women’s Prison, in Changchun, has held Falun Gong practitioners since 2002. In a September 30 report, Minghui.org documented at least 45 practitioners who, as of May 2026, had died in the prison or after their release from it. The oldest was 82. The youngest was 33. Minghui describes the count as incomplete.

The documented cases describe recurring methods. Practitioners were forced to sit motionless on small stools from before dawn until midnight for months at a time. Some were tied to beds by their limbs and stretched for hours. Guards assigned criminal inmates to monitor and beat practitioners who refused to renounce their faith. Practitioners on hunger strike were force-fed, and some were injected with unidentified drugs.

The record also describes efforts to conceal deaths. In at least two cases in 2011, according to the report, the prison attached intravenous drips to the bodies of women who had already died and then reported that they had died of heart disease. In other cases, families were kept from viewing the body before cremation.

The deaths have not slowed. Seven of the 45 died between January 2025 and May 2026. The most recent on the list, Ms. Wang Xiulian, died in May 2026 less than three months after her admission. Ms. Xu and Ms. Zhang, both of whom died in September, are not included in that count.