Chinese Authorities Pursue 3-Year Prison Sentence for 94-Year-Old Falun Gong Practitioner

Xu Shujun, 94, a Falun Gong practitioner from Jixi City, China’s northeastern Heilongjiang Province, is being threatened by a judge who is seeking to incarcerate him for three years for exercising his right to freedom of expression, according to a report on Minghui.org.Xu and his wife, Wang Chuanyun, were detained by police on Aug. 30, 2017, for hanging up information banners about the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP’s) defamation and persecution of Falun Gong. The couple, around 85 and 79 years of age at the time, were released on bail the same day as a leniency for their age. For the same reason, they were not indicted in 2017.Yet four years later, in 2021, the local procuratorate indicted them for the same incident, and the local court sentenced each of them to three years of imprisonment and 20,000 yuan (nearly $3,000) in fines—more than 20 times the average monthly retirement pension in Heilongjiang Province.4 Years of Living in ExileAfter the sentencing in 2021, the old couple fled their home to avoid persecution in jail, living in exile, according to Minghui.org, a U.S.-based clearing house maintained by overseas Falun Gong practitioners documenting the persecution.However, the police found and pressured their daughter and tracked the elderly couple to their rental dwelling in August 2025. Since then, the police and a judge, surnamed Gai, have continued to pay visits to the couple, interrogating them and forcibly taking them to a local hospital for medical clearance to jail them.The years in exile had taken a toll on Wang’s health, which further deteriorated in August as the harassment and threats from police and the judge intensified. She died one month later on Sept. 16, 2025, Minghui.org reported.Xu’s condition also deteriorated sharply. Devastated by his wife’s recent death and worn down by months of constant fear, he lost more than 10 pounds, was confined to bed, required adult diapers, almost lost his hearing, and could barely manage more than a few spoonfuls of porridge a day, according to the report.Despite this, Gai paid a visit to Xu again in January this year, who was by now 94 years old, and told Xu’s daughter that her father wasn’t eligible for parole as the medical records issued by the local hospital indicated he could live for another five or six years.“While your father cannot take care of himself, I can still have him jailed as long as he’s able to eat,” Gai told Xu’s daughter, according to Minghui.org.Many Senior Falun Gong Practitioners Still Face SentencingA banner reading “Falun Dafa is good” in Chinese hangs outside a residential building in Changchun City, Jilin Province, China, in 2017. Courtesy of Minghui.orgThe couple were among the 514 Falun Gong practitioners documented by Minghui.org to have been sentenced in 2025 for exercising their freedom of expression and freedom of religion—rights that have been widely curtailed in China under the rule of the CCP.Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual improvement practice based on the moral tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance, and incorporates five gentle qigong exercises. According to official Chinese reports, there were 70 million–100 million people practicing Falun Gong in the country before the CCP’s persecution started in 1999.On Dec. 18, 2025, Huo Guilan, a 75-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Xi’an, China’s northwestern Shaanxi Province, was sentenced to nine years in prison and fined 36,000 yuan (about $5,300) by a district court in Baoji City—solely for her faith in Falun Gong, Minghui.org reported.Her appeal was rejected on March 19 this year, when the Baoji Intermediate Court upheld the original verdict.After the CCP began its persecution of Falun Gong in 1999, Huo was sent to forced labor camps twice (totaling two years) and imprisoned for five years. She has also endured frequent abductions, detention, and harassment over the past 26 years.Wang Yulan, a 78-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Kunming, China’s southwestern Yunnan Province, was arrested on June 6, 2024, for sending a letter to a local prosecutor explaining that practicing Falun Gong is legal under Chinese law.Chinese human rights lawyers have defended Falun Gong practitioners and other religious believers for their right to freedom of expression and freedom of religion. Minghui.org reported that at least 68 lawyers defended Falun Gong practitioners in court in 2025 and pleaded not guilty on their behalf, citing Chinese law and the constitution.Nevertheless, on April 16, 2025, Wang was sentenced to two years in prison and fined 8,000 yuan (nearly $2,000). Her appeal was rejected. Despite poor health, the nearly 80-year-old woman was imprisoned in Yunnan No. 2 Women’s Prison in March this year.Chinese lawyers, at great risk to themselves, continue to call for an immediate end to the illegal sentencing of Falun Gong practitioners, demanding the unconditional release of all those currently imprisoned.CCP Clampdown on Human Rights LawyersThe CCP has long persecuted human rights lawyers who defend Falun Gong practitioners and other religious believers.On March 21, 2014, four human rights lawyers—Jiang Tianyong, Tang Jitian, Wang Cheng, and Zhang Junjie—went to Jiansanjiang, a large state-owned farm conglomerate in Heilongjiang Province, to visit petitioners and Falun Gong practitioners detained by the local authorities, but three of them were placed under 15 days of administrative detention, with the four forced to leave Jiansanjiang by police.The lawyers were charged with the alleged crime of “using cults to harm the society.” More lawyers came to Jiansanjiang to defend and support the detained lawyers upon hearing of their detention. But they were encircled in a cordon set up by the local police, who prohibited local residents or supporters from providing food or water to the encircled lawyers.The four detained lawyers and those who came to support them were all subjected to torture and beating by the local police.A major escalation was then seen in the July 9, 2015, clampdown—or what’s known as the “709 crackdown”—in which more than 300 lawyers and rights activists were detained. Many faced torture, forced “confessions,” imprisonment, and revocation of their lawyer licenses.The lawyers said the systematic repression was aimed at intimidating the legal community so that persecuted groups would have no real defense against attacks from the state. Prominent examples include renowned lawyers such as Gao Zhisheng, Xie Yang, Xie Yanyi, Wang Quanzhang, Li Heping, and Wang Yu, all of whom have been persecuted for their work.Gao has been missing in China since 2017, and his wife—who fled China with their two children to the United States for refuge—doesn’t know his whereabouts or whether he’s still alive.In communist systems such as that in China, the judiciary is not independent and is subordinate to the needs of the communist party. In China, it is common for petitioners in the legal system to be blocked from lodging complaints or face repercussions from local officials if their appeals successfully reach higher levels of the administration.In 2022, during the height of the CCP’s zero-COVID lockdowns in China, dissident Peng Lifa, who unfurled two banners on an overpass in Beijing demanding democracy and an end to the restrictions on free movement, was immediately detained. He has disappeared from the public since then, with his whereabouts unknown.