77-year-old Woman Sentenced to Three Years for Practicing Falun Gong

(Minghui.org) A 77-year-old Nanchang City, Jiangxi Province resident was recently sentenced to three years for her faith in Falun Gong. Due to her advanced age, she will be allowed to serve her term outside of prison. 

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.

Ms. Cao Yucheng, a retired tractor factory worker, began to practice Falun Gong in September 1995. She credits the practice for curing her gastroenteritis, heart disease, and high blood lipid level. 

Since the onset of the persecution, she has been arrested seven times and incarcerated for a total of two years and one month. Her home was ransacked four times. She was extorted or had her pension suspended, for a total of 35,000 yuan. 

Ms. Cao was first arrested in March 2001 and held in a brainwashing center for three months.

She was arrested again in June 2008 and given 1.5 years at the Jiangxi Province Women’s Forced Labor Camp. The guards forced her to work 13 hours every day without pay. She suffered generalized edema and often fell while walking. She lost all of her teeth and had persistent fever. Sometimes she coughed up blood and had blood in her stool.

After being reported for distributing informational materials about Falun Gong, she was arrested in July 2012 and detained at the Jinxian County Detention Center for a month. The police extorted 30,000 yuan from her family in exchange for her release. 

Ms. Cao was arrested again in April 2013 and held in a brainwashing center located in a hotel for a month. The police attempted to give her a three-year labor camp term, but later relented. They instead withheld her pension for four months.

Ms. Cao’s next arrest was in June 2015 after being reported for distributing Falun Gong materials again. Due to her high blood pressure and heart condition, she was refused admission by the lockup and released at night.

Ms. Cao was taken to a brainwashing center again in January 2019 and subjected to intensive brainwashing for five days. The police claimed that their surveillance camera recorded her distributing Falun Gong materials to elementary school students. They threatened to give her a heavy term. Despite the brainwashing and coercion, Ms. Cao remained firm in her faith. The police had to force her daughter to write a statement renouncing Falun Gong on her behalf and then ordered her to sign it.

Three months after she was released, she was arrested again on April 25, 2019. Her Falun Gong books, photo of Falun Gong’s founder, media player and other personal belongings were confiscated. She was released later that afternoon.

It’s recently confirmed by Minghui.org that she has been sentenced to three years. Further details regarding her case remain unclear at the time of writing.