61-Year-Old Fisherwoman Imprisoned for Faith Dies 2 Days After Release

Falun Gong practitioners march during a parade calling for an end to the Chinese Communist Party’s 25-year-long persecution of the spiritual practice in Washington on July 11, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

A 61-year-old Chinese fisherwoman who was jailed for her faith in Falun Gong has died two days after being released.

Xu Shanping’s family brought her home on July 5 following an unexpected discharge notice from a prison in southern China’s Guangxi Province, only to find her emaciated—reduced to skin and bones. On July 7, Xu passed away at the age of 61, according to Minghui, a U.S.-based website dedicated to tracking victims of the persecution of Falun Gong.

While it’s not immediately clear what Xu experienced in the Chinese jail cell, people familiar with Xu told The Epoch Times that she was in good health before she was arrested for her faith on Dec. 19, 2020.

She was initially arrested over four years ago after being caught distributing materials exposing the persecution of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also called Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that combines meditation with moral teachings of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. Popular in China during the 1990s, the practice attracted nearly 100 million people by the end of the decade.

Seeing its popularity as a threat, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) unleashed a sweeping campaign in 1999 to eradicate the peaceful practice. Millions of practitioners have since been subjected to hate propaganda, arbitrary detention, and severe torture by China’s ruling party. A large but unknown number are believed to have been murdered for their organs.

Torture or Abuse

Chen Xiao, whose mother was arrested by the police along with Xu for their Falun Gong faith, said she was shocked when she learned the news about Xu’s death.

Xu was a healthy middle-aged woman who liked to help others, Chen told The Epoch Times on Aug. 15. “She always had a smile on her face. She was very kind-hearted.”

When Xu and Chen’s mother distributed material exposing the regime’s persecution of their faith community in 2020, they were arrested by the police in Dijiao town of Guangxi Province, according to their families and reports on Minghui.

Xu was initially detained at Beihai City Detention Center and was later transferred to Nanning Women’s Prison. According to Minghui, prison authorities informed Xu’s family in 2023 that she had developed uterine fibroids but denied their request for medical parole. Chen said she suspected that Xu experienced torture or other abuses in the prison that led to her death.

Like her mother, Chen said Xu aspired to live according to the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. “As long as she didn’t give up [her faith], she would have been constantly tortured,” she said. “I know this from my own experience in such a prison.”

That viewpoint was echoed by Wu Shaoping, a former Chinese lawyer who now lives in the United States.

It’s unlikely that the prison doctors didn’t realize the deterioration of Xu’s health, Wu suggested.

“They wanted her to die at home” to avoid being blamed for her condition, Wu told The Epoch Times

He urged the international community to hold the CCP and the prison authorities accountable for Xu’s death.

“People involved in [the mistreatment of Xu], in my opinion, are no different from participating in the murder of her,” Wu said. “Then, of course, these people should be prosecuted for intentional injury and intentional murder.”

Human Rights Catastrophe Continues

Xu’s death adds to signs that the persecution of Falun Gong continues unabated.

In the first six months of this year, Minghui documented 69 practitioner deaths, including dozens of deaths that went unreported in 2023 or years before. Considering the regime’s strict censorship of related information, Minghui noted that the actual number of deaths is likely many times higher. To date, the total known death toll has surpassed 5,000. Many more are feared to have died in the CCP’s secretive network of black prisons.

That figure also doesn’t include practitioners whom experts have raised concerns about being probable murder victims of organ harvesting in China. Detained Falun Gong practitioners are vulnerable to becoming the victims of forced organ harvesting, an independent people’s tribunal in London confirmed. The tribunal concluded in 2019 that forced organ harvesting has taken place in China for years “on a significant scale,” and that killing to supply the transplant industry continues to this day.

The death of Xu fuels Chen’s worries about her mother, whose whereabouts remain unknown today.

“I hope that all the kind people in the world could recognize the evil nature of the CCP, wake up, and stand together to dismantle the CCP’s tyranny,” she said. “Let’s work together to end this cruel persecution.”

Qiao Song contributed to this report.