China: Another Falun Gong practitioner tortured to death in prison

Falun Gong is a major new religious movement in China. Founded in 1992 by Li Hongzhi (李洪志), it teaches physical exercises and martial arts, as well as meditation and breathing techniques. Initially, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged such groups, but turned against them in the late 1990s and banned them in 1999. Falun Gong members have faced severe persecution since then. “Xu Shanping: Another Falun Gong Practitioner Tortured to Death in Prison,” by Yang Feng, Bitter Winter, August 16, 2024:

On August 7, 2024, human rights organizations were informed by fellow believers and relatives of Xu Shanping, a 61-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Beihai City, Guangxi Province, that she had passed away on July 7. This came just two days after she was released early from Nanning City Women's Prison due to a serious illness she contracted there. Xu was still serving her sentence for participating in Falun Gong activities when her family was asked by authorities to pick her up. Xu and her friend Tan Zezhen, 76, were arrested by police at 4:00 p.m. on December 19, 2020, for distributing Falun Gong literature near a school. After the arrest, officers searched their homes and took them to Beihai City Detention Center. At some point during her detention, Xu was transferred to Nanning City Women's Prison. The status and location of Tan's detention are still unknown. Tan's daughter, Ms. Chen, lives in Sydney, Australia, and is urging authorities to release her mother, whose whereabouts are currently unknown. Over the past 25 years, Tan's household has been searched over twenty times. She was twice held in labor camps, serving nearly four years of detention, and had to endure various periods of physical and psychological hardship during repeated stays in detention centers. Her family, who report that she was repeatedly tortured, is now deeply concerned for her well-being. As for Xu, in 2023, the authorities informed her family that she had cancer. The family's request for her release was denied. The prison suddenly told Xu's family to take her home in early July 2024. She returned home on July 5, only to die two days later. She was just skin and bones, and it was obvious that her health had not been adequately treated in prison. She joins a long list of Falun Gong practitioners who have been persecuted to death in China….