Four Sichuan Women Denied Due Process and Imprisoned for Sharing Information about Falun Gong

On Feb. 11, 2025, the Chongzhou City Court sentenced four female Falun Gong practitioners to prison terms ranging from 2 to 4.5 years for distributing Falun Gong informational materials at various locations in March 2024, according to Weiquanwang, a website that aggregates reports of abuse from human rights defenders across China.

Freedom of expression stifled

Ms. Li Caiqiong, 62, received a 4.5-year sentence and a 10,000-yuan fine, while Ms. Meng Qingsu was sentenced to 3.5 years with the same fine. Ms. Tang Xingxiu was given 2.5 years and a 6,000-yuan fine, and Ms. Jia Xingrong received 2 years and a 5,000-yuan fine.

The four practitioners, were arrested on March 19, 2024, after distributing informational materials in the first half of March and lodged their appeals on the day of sentencing, according to Minghui.org. The website is operated by volunteers and shares persecution cases against Falun Gong practitioners inside and outside China.

The materials in question detailed the principles of Falun Gong—a traditional Chinese spiritual practice—and documented the brutal persecution cases against its practitioners by the Chinese Communist Party.

Abuse of process

During the Feb. 11, 2025, hearing, serious concerns emerged over procedural fairness. The session began at 1:30 PM with an audience largely composed of court-arranged observers.

The charges all four practitioners faced had no basis in the law, as no Chinese law criminalizes Falun Gong. They dismissed their court-appointed lawyers, who had been instructed to plead guilty on their behalf.

At In a rare exception, only Ms. Jia’s son was allowed to serve as her non-lawyer defender, while Ms. Tang’s relative was forcibly barred from offering any defense. [According to PRC’s Criminal Procedure Law (2018), friends and family of the suspect or defendant may serve as defenders.]

During the hearing, the presiding judge repeatedly interrupted the defendants’ testimonies. Family members and designated defenders demanded the legal basis for the charges but received only dismissive responses. Regarding whether Falun Gong is classified as a cult under Chinese law, a defender submitted the Notice of the Ministry of Public Security on Certain Issues Concerning the Identification and Suppression of Cult Organization. The document listed 14 cult organizations but did not include Falun Gong. Instead of addressing this evidence, the judge passed it to the prosecutor for verification. The prosecutor refused to examine it and falsely claimed that the regime had already determined Falun Gong’s illegality—without providing any legal foundation for this assertion.

The judge’s swift sentencing of all four practitioners to prison, following these irregularities, underscores a grave departure from the principles of fairness and transparency. The entire process appears to have been orchestrated to preclude any genuine defense, effectively denying the practitioners their right to a fair trial.

Before this sentence, both Ms. Li and Ms. Meng had endured long-term ordeals.

Ms. Li, for instance, was detained in 2000 for exposing the persecution of Falun Gong. She was first abducted while advocating for Falun Gong in Beijing, detained at the Chengdu Beijing Office, and subsequently subjected to repeated illegal detentions and a two-year forced labor term at the Nanmu Temple Women’s Labor Camp in Zizhong County. There, Ms. Li endured a brutal regimen of physical abuse, psychological torture, and inhumane treatment designed to force her to renounce her beliefs. Later, after being wrongfully convicted for distributing Falun Gong materials, Ms. Li spent four years in Chengdu Women’s Prison and an additional eight years in Sichuan Women’s Prison, where she suffered severe mistreatment through methods including beatings, isolation, and other cruel practices, all orchestrated to break her spirit and suppress her faith.

Ms. Meng similarly suffered seven years of imprisonment from 2015 to 2022 for practicing Falun Gong.

The conviction and sentencing of these four Falun Gong practitioners not only highlights a blatant disregard for due process but also serves as a stark reminder of the ongoing repression of religious and spiritual freedom in China. Their cases reveal a judicial process that appears designed to silence dissent and eliminate any possibility of a genuine defense, perpetuating a system of state-sanctioned injustice. The international community and human rights advocates must continue to call attention to these abuses, demanding accountability and the restoration of fundamental freedoms for all.