Yunnan Mother Sentenced to Prison for Practicing Falun Gong for the Third Time

Ms. Kuang Deying (况德英), a 64-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Qiaojia County, Zhaotong City, Yunnan Province, has been illegally sentenced to four years in prison by the Wuhua District Court of Kunming. She was arrested on August 3, 2025, when police raided her home and confiscated personal property, according to Weiquanwang, a website aggregating grassroots accounts of human rights abuses in China.

The sentence, which became known in January 2026, marks the seventh time Ms. Kuang has been detained for her faith. The court also imposed a fine, the amount of which remains unclear. Ms. Kuang has appealed the verdict, and her family has retained a lawyer to represent her in the second-instance trial, according to Minghui.org.

Over a decade of imprisonment

Born in 1962, Ms. Kuang is a self-employed businesswoman who moved to Kunming in the early 2000s to earn a living. Since the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) launched its nationwide persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, she has been repeatedly targeted.

She was first detained in February 2000 for attending a Falun Gong experience-sharing meeting, and later that year was intercepted and detained while traveling to Beijing to petition for justice for Falun Gong practitioners.

Between 2002 and 2008, Ms. Kuang was twice sentenced to forced labor, totaling five years, including six months of detention beyond her original term. In 2008, she was secretly sentenced to four years in prison, and in 2020 she received another five-year prison sentence despite serious procedural violations and a lack of lawful evidence. Altogether, she has endured more than fourteen years of wrongful imprisonment.

The prolonged persecution inflicted deep trauma on her family. Her husband divorced her under sustained pressure, and her elderly mother—who was also harassed for practicing Falun Gong—died in 2019 after years of psychological stress.

Torture in detention facilities

During her incarceration in labor camps and prisons, Ms. Kuang was subjected to severe abuse for refusing to renounce her belief. She was beaten, slapped, and verbally abused by guards and inmates, and repeatedly forced to sit on a small stool for up to sixteen hours a day as a form of punishment. She was also denied family visits, restricted from making phone calls, and deprived of basic necessities.

While imprisoned in Yunnan Second Women’s Prison following her 2008 and 2020 sentences, Ms. Kuang was placed under strict discipline. For years, she was not allowed to purchase feminine hygiene products and was forced to tear old clothing to manage her menstrual periods. As a result, she was left without sufficient clothing to endure the winter.

On multiple occasions, Ms. Kuang was beaten for speaking out against abuse or exposing propaganda defaming Falun Gong. She developed facial paralysis after repeated assaults and was further punished for resisting so-called “transformation” efforts aimed at forcing her to abandon her faith. Despite sustained physical and psychological torture, she has remained steadfast in her beliefs.

Ms. Kuang Deying’s case exemplifies the persistent persecution faced by Falun Gong practitioners in China, where peaceful religious belief continues to be criminalized through arbitrary detention, torture, and unlawful sentencing.