Chinese Woman Aged Over 95 Years Old Sentenced to Prison for Her Faith

Falun Gong practitioners gather for a candlelight vigil commemorating Falun Gong practitioners’ persecution to death in China by the Chinese Communist Party at the National Mall in Washington on July 11, 2024. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Rao Jiyu, a 94-year-old woman, was abducted by police in front of a local park in Guiyang City, China’s southwestern Guizhou Province in 2022.

Ms. Rao is among the 447 Falun Gong practitioners whose arrests were reported by Minghui.org, a website documenting the persecution of Falun Gong, first in June and later in an updated report on July 18.

Some of these practitioners were sent to jail before June this year, with Minghui saying its reporting is “belated” due to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strict censorship of information and the regime’s internet blockage.

Many of the imprisoned Falun Gong practitioners are aged 70 and above, and they have been handed down lengthy sentences of up to 11 years for their faith.

Mr. Hu Biao, a 78-year-old retired health official in Gulin County, Sichuan Province, was sentenced to nine years in prison. In Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, three senior Falun Gong practitioners were given heavy sentences: Yu Guichun, 72, was sentenced to eight years; Ms. Li Yongmei, 79, was sentenced to five years; and Ms. Zhang Yujin, 79, was sentenced to four and a half years.

Piero Tozzi, the staff director of the U.S. Congressional-Executive Commission on China (CECC), has called on members of the CCP to change course. He said in an interview with The Epoch Times on July 11, that he hopes individuals in the CCP still have “conscience” and that they “haven’t lost their humanity.”

“So we ask them to change [their] hearts and minds,” he said.

Mr. Tozzi was one of the U.S. officials who addressed thousands of Falun Gong practitioners at a rally in Washington on July 11 calling for an end to the CCP’s 25-year-long persecution of Falun Gong.

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is an ancient self-improvement practice based on the principles of truthfulness, compassion, forbearance. The physical and moral benefits of the practice gained great popularity among Chinese people after it was introduced to the public in 1992. According to official statistics, 70 million to 100 million Chinese people were practicing Falun Gong before the CCP’s persecution began.

The CCP viewed the popularity of the meditative practice as a threat to its control of the people and in July 1999, then-leader of the CCP Jiang Zemin launched a nationwide campaign aimed at eliminating Falun Gong within three months by targeting practitioners’ reputations, seizing their wealth, and attacking them physically.

The persecution is still ongoing across China. Falun Gong practitioners can be detained and imprisoned for spreading information about Falun Gong.

Minghui reported that Ms. Rao was searched by local police outside a park in Guiyang on March 7, 2020. Police arrested her after they finding Falun Gong materials on her. She was 92 at the time.

Ms. Rao was taken to the Taiciqiao Police Station where a blood sample was taken against her will. The police then raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and 8,000 yuan ($1,100).

She was released on bail that evening after she failed a physical examination required for continued detention. She was put on house arrest in November 2021 and was charged by the local district prosecutor on March 15, 2022.

A staff member of the procuratorate went to her home in May 2022, and said she could hire a lawyer. Ms. Rao told the staffer that her practicing Falun Gong is legal and that she didn’t violate any law. The person replied by saying that the court would appoint a lawyer for her.

However, Chinese lawyers are “not allowed to process Falun Gong cases,” according to Chinese human rights lawyer Gao Zhisheng in an open letter to the United States Congress in 2007.

Chinese lawyers who do defend Falun Gong practitioners, believers of other religions, and Chinese dissidents are subjected to detention, imprisonment, torture, disappearance, and loss of their certificates to practice law in China.

Mr. Gao lost contact with his family in August 2017, while he was under house arrest. He has not been heard from since. His whereabouts, life, or death remain unknown.

Ms. Rao’s whereabouts are also unclear. Minghui was only able to confirm that that Ms. Rao was sentenced to 2.5 years with a 10,000 yuan ($1,375) fine on Dec. 13, 2022. Other details about her trial and sentencing aren’t clear. It’s also unclear whether she was taken to prison to serve time or allowed to serve time at home.

The Falun Dafa Information Center, which documents the persecution, estimates that millions of Falun Gong adherents have been arrested and detained since the persecution started, often enduring torture and abuse while imprisoned. Hundreds of thousands of Falun Gong practitioners may have been killed for their organs by the Chinese communist regime.

Last month, the House of Representatives passed a bill, calling for an “immediate end” to the persecution of Falun Gong. The bill would also sanction those involved in the regime’s forced organ harvesting.

The CECC has established and maintains a database of Chinese political prisoners who have been detained or imprisoned by the CCP for exercising their legally protected rights. This database also includes and updates information on Falun Gong practitioners who have been unlawfully detained by the CCP.

“This persecution must end. It is inhumane. It reveals the barbarity of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) that has to stop,” Mr. Tozzi said in the interview with The Epoch Times.

Li Chen contributed to this report.