(Minghui.org) A 68-year-old woman in Weihai City, Shandong Province, has been admitted to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison to serve a one-year term because she practices Falun Gong.
Ms. Xu Aiqin was arrested on October 22, 2023, for giving people calendars which had information about Falun Gong. The arresting officers from the Gushan Town Police Station also raided her home. She was detained for 15 days and released on November 6.
Ms. Xu was taken back into custody between June and July 2025. The authorities did not notify her family about her case status. Minghui.org confirmed her prison sentence in January 2026, but details about her indictment, trial and sentencing still aren’t clear.
For upholding her faith, Falun Gong, Ms. Xu has been repeatedly targeted after the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution in 1999.
Ms. Xu was first arrested on September 10, 2006, after she was reported for talking to people about Falun Gong. She was detained for a month and the police extorted 6,000 yuan from her before they released her. Her father was devastated by her arrest and passed away shortly after. Since then, the Gushan Town Police Station officers regularly harassed her. They sometimes followed her and searched her bag while she was grocery shopping.
Ms. Xu was arrested again in May 2012. Officers from the Weihai City Police Department raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and media player. She was detained for ten days and interrogated. She managed to escape while the police were taking her to the Wangcun Brainwashing Center. She went into hiding and did not dare to return home for a year.
Officers from the Gushan Border Police Station broke into Ms. Xu’s home at 5 a.m. on June 29, 2021, and took her to the Weihai City Detention Center for ten days. After that, the authorities continued to harass her, often taking photos of her without permission.
In 2022, the police harassed Ms. Xu almost every month. Sometimes a group of officers would suddenly break into her home and search for materials related to Falun Gong.
Ms. Xu had just finished taking a shower on September 29, 2022, when two officers broke in. While one questioned her about where she had been in the past two days, the other searched her rooms and took photos.