January to June 2024: 218 Falun Gong Practitioners Sentenced, 229 Delayed Reports

Shaded map of China's provinces, municipalities, and autonomous regions where reports of Falun Gong practitioners' prison sentences were documented between January and June 2024.

Between January and June 2024, Chinese courts sentenced 218 Falun Gong practitioners to prison for upholding the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. Most were punished for possessing Falun Gong spiritual texts or engaging in advocacy, including producing and distributing flyers, reporting Chinese regime crimes to international media, and creating tools to circumvent censorship.

Including the cases from this year, a total of 447 reports have been documented by Minghui during this period.

Approximately 52 percent of these cases were delayed reports from 2023 or earlier, due to the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) strict censorship. The censorship of human rights organization websites like Minghui significantly delays the reporting of cases by family, friends, and fellow adherents. The delayed reports include 159 cases from 2023, 18 from 2022, and 11 from between 2021 and 2017. The sentencing dates of forty-one cases remain unknown.

Widespread rule ‘by’ law

China consists of 22 provinces, 4 centrally controlled municipalities, and 5 autonomous regions. Reports indicate that Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced in 26 jurisdictions, covering about 92 percent of the population. This underscores the widespread nature of the persecution. The only areas with no reported cases within this period were Shanghai, Tibet, Guangxi, and Xinjiang.

In Shandong Province, 78 Falun Gong practitioners were sentenced, the highest number in any region. This was followed by Liaoning with 65 sentences and Jilin with 50. Additionally, nine other jurisdictions reported double-digit sentencing cases, while the remaining 14 areas had single-digit cases.

In a prominent case, the Wulian County Court in Rizhao City, Shandong Province, sentenced twenty-one Falun Gong practitioners to prison in a single day, citing Article 300 of the Criminal Code. This article, “using a heretical organization to undermine the implementation of the law,” is a common tactic used by the CCP to justify their repression of practitioners, despite constitutional provisions that guarantee freedom of religious belief under Article 36.

Three months after the persecution began in 1999, the CCP retroactively and arbitrarily labeled Falun Gong as a cult and established Article 300, aiming to discredit the peaceful spiritual practice.

Similarly, in Changtu County, Liaoning Province, nine local practitioners were sentenced for distributing Falun Gong informational materials. Group sentencing is common, with courts in Shiyan City, Hubei Province, and Laizhou City, Shandong Province, frequently sentencing multiple practitioners simultaneously.

Families divided across oceans

Ms. Jiang Yongqin, the mother of two children in Australia, was a former engineering lecturer at Zhejiang Sci-Tech University. Despite earning multiple distinctions during her career, Jiang was fired because the university found out she practiced Falun Gong.

On January 24, 2024, she was sentenced to five years in prison without her lawyer or family being informed. Previously in June 2022, Jiang endured horrific abuse and sexual torture while detained at Jilin City Detention Center.

*Ms. Liu Zhitong holds a photo of her mother, calling for the “Immediate Release of my mother Kong Qingping.”*

Ms. Kong Qingping is the mother of a resident of California. On November 10, 2023, she was sentenced to a seven-year prison term and a 30,000 yuan fine. She was denied legal representation during her three trials, and her family suspects she was sentenced for possession of Falun Gong spiritual texts. In 2020, police trespassed into her home and confiscated books related to Falun Gong without a warrant.

Ms. Kong practiced Falun Gong for 20 years and experienced health benefits from the meditative exercises and spiritual teachings.

*Ms. Ding Yue, with her husband and child, calling for the release of her mother Ms. Meng Zhaohong*.

In a separate California family rescue case, Ms. Meng Zhaohong was arrested by Chinese police on May 9, 2023 and sentenced to prison for an unknown length of time. The U.S. State Department responded regarding her arrest after a California representative wrote a letter to Secretary Blinken.

Meng faced charges after discussing the persecution of Falun Gong during a visit to a local fair. During the trial on August 22, 2023, the prosecution recommended a prison sentence of 4 to 5 years, but the final verdict remains unknown.

Mr. Liu Zhiming is a resident of Kunming City, Yunnan Province, and he was sentenced to 3.5 years of imprisonment and a 10,000 yuan fine on April 22, 2024. The 51-year-old previously worked as a mail carrier and ride-share driver.

Prior to his sentencing, he was the full-time caretaker of his autistic sister and 9-year-old son. His wife worked as a babysitter until Liu’s arrest, after which she was also arrested and lost her job. Recently, Liu’s sister was forcibly admitted to a psychiatric hospital by the CCP, and his wife was left to care for their son alone.