(Minghui.org)
Name: Tang XuzhenChinese Name: 唐旭珍Gender: FemaleAge: 88City: LuzhouProvince: SichuanOccupation: Retired college professorDate of Death: December 18, 2025Date of Most Recent Arrest: April 8, 2022Most Recent Place of Detention: Lianhuachi Police Station
An 88-year-old woman in Luzhou City, Sichuan Province died on December 18, 2025, while still facing trial for her faith in Falun Gong, a mind-body practice that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999.
Ms. Tang Xuzhen
Ms. Tang Xuzhen, a retired professor of cytology in the Department of Pathological Anatomy at Southwest Medical University, was getting off a bus on April 8, 2022, when a man and woman stopped her. The two plainclothes officers ordered her to go with them. She refused, but they stuffed her into a car and drove her to the Lianhuachi Police Station.
Two monitoring devices were used during Ms. Tang’s interrogation, one placed on the desk, and the other on a wall facing her. The woman officer revealed herself as Wang Xuelin. The man said he was surnamed Hou. Ms. Tang refused to answer their questions and they took her to three different places in town, where they alleged that she had distributed Falun Gong materials. They attempted to photograph her at those three places, but she refused.
Chief Yu Lei notified the officers in Ms. Tang’s home district of Jiangyang in the afternoon to have her son to pick her up. When her son arrived, Wang and a male officer also got into his car. Chief Yu and another officer followed them in another car. The four officers then raided her home. None of them were wearing uniforms, nor did they show their IDs or a search warrant. They confiscated her Falun Gong books and informational materials. They did not tally the items in front of her or give her a list of the items, as is required by law.
Wang and another woman officer, both in plainclothes, returned to Ms. Tang’s home the next day and ordered her to sign some paperwork. She refused, and they made her husband sign it. He was still recovering from a head injury sustained the year prior, and did not know what he was signing. He just knew he signed three pieces of paper. Unbeknown to him, he was later listed as prosecution witness against his wife.
Wang came on the third day and had Ms. Tang’s husband sign three more pieces of paper (one of them likely the house arrest notice).
Wang notified Ms. Tang on April 8, 2022, to report to the Lianhuachi Police Station the following Thursday (the 14th). Wang came again two days later and urged Ms. Tang to go to the police station on Thursday. She refused to comply.
Three years later, on October 21, 2025, a worker from the Jiangyang District Procuratorate called Ms. Tang, saying that she had been indicted for the 2022 encounter and for distributing Falun Gong materials in August 2024, and May and June in 2025. The caller ordered her to report to them to sign the indictment. She refused.
Ms. Tang passed away on December 18, 2025, while awaiting trial. For 15 years before her death, her pension had also been suspended because of her faith in Falun Gong. Her former employer said they had her pension benefits saved aside and were ready to give the money to her as soon as she wrote a statement to renounce her faith.
Ms. Tang was also arrested numerous times before her latest persecution episode. She was once given three years of forced labor in April 2001 and sentenced to three and a half years in prison following an arrest in October 2009.
Falun Gong Restored Her Health
Ms. Tang suffered from more than ten illnesses in her younger years, including fungal gastritis, hepatitis, cholecystitis, and pyelonephritis. In 1996, she was also diagnosed with nasopharyngeal cancer, making it difficult for her to swallow or eat.
Frustrated and disappointed, Ms. Tang lost all hope. She then heard about Falun Gong in April 1996 and began to practice it. Within three days, she lost about 600 milliliters of blood. The bleeding in her nose then stopped and the cancer was cured. Not long after that, her other ailments also miraculously disappeared.
Besides being restored to good health, Ms. Tang discovered that the principles of Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance made her more open-minded, sincere, and kind. To help patients from remote regions get their lab test results more quickly, she often worked overtime without additional pay. Her dedication and expertise earned her the respect of specialists, medical staff members, and patients. Even after she retired, her employer hired her back.
Earliest Persecution
Ms. Tang went to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong on October 26, 1999, and was arrested on Tiananmen Square. She was held at the Fengtai Stadium and the Mentougou District Lockup in Beijing for four days, before being taken to the Sichuan Province’s Liaison Office in Beijing. After two days in the office, she was escorted back to Sichuan and held at the local Huangjingshan Lockup for three days.
Ms. Tang boarded a train to Beijing again in 2001 but was intercepted while en-route there. The two security officers from her school, surnamed Lyu and Yu, who escorted her back, deducted their travel expenses from her pay, on top of fining her 1,597 yuan. She was held at the Huangjingshan Lockup for 15 days, then moved to the Sanhuashan Detention Center, where she was forced to do hard labor every day. Whenever she tried to do Falun Gong exercises, she was beaten and put in handcuffs and shackles.
Ms. Tang was moved to the Zhangba Brainwashing Center eight months later. She refused to renounce her faith, and government employee Wang Yongzhen, who had been assigned to monitor her, forced her to stand for long hours. She protested, and Wang slapped her in the face, causing it to become swollen. Wang Xue, head of the 610 Office, ordered her school to pay 1,000 yuan to cover her living expenses. The money was later deducted from her pay.
Ms. Zhang was transferred to the Xicao Brainwashing Center one month later. Before long, she was taken to the Huangjingshan Lockup and held there for 15 days, and forced to pay 330 yuan of living expenses. After that, she was returned to the Xicao Brainwashing Center and forced to pay about 1,000 yuan in monthly expenses (which were deducted from her pay).
Given Three Years of Forced Labor in 2001
Ms. Tang managed to escape the brainwashing center on October 14, 2000, only to be arrested on April 9, 2001, and held at the Sanhuashan Detention Center. The expenses (totaling over 4,500 yuan) that the police incurred while hunting for her were deducted from her pay. A few days later she was given three years of forced labor to be served at home. The police however did not release her, but held her at the Yuhuangguan Lockup for seven months. She was given spoiled pickled vegetables with maggots in them and still had to pay 500 yuan for living expenses when the food should be free for all inmates.
In November 2001, Ms. Tang was taken to the Shibaowan Brainwashing Center and held there for ten days. Vice secretary Chen Wenyu from her school instructed security head Li Lianjie to submit a request to the police to keep her at the Yuhuangguan Lockup for a few more months. They lied to her family that she did not want to return home for the upcoming Chinese New Year. She was tortured during her detention,. On one occasion when she did the Falun Gong meditation exercise the guards handcuffed her to metal door with her toes barely touching the ground for over one hour.
Arrested Again in 2004 and 2005
Ms. Tang was arrested in late December 2004 and held at the Hejiang County Detention Center for 26 days. Lin Min, head of the Jiangyang District 610 Office in Luzhou City, and officer Yang from the Hejiang County Detention Center, video-recorded her against her will and grabbed her hand to place palmprints and fingerprints on some paperwork. During the struggle, her hands were badly bruised, as Yang pushed her hard.
After another arrest in 2005, Ms. Tang was taken to the Shibaowan Brainwashing Center, where three women were assigned to monitor her. As soon as she started doing the Falun Gong exercises, they kicked her. At night, one of the women, surnamed Zhou, put her feet on her body to hold her down. They later added an electronic monitoring device in the room to monitor her around the clock, causing her tremendous stress.
Constant Surveillance at Home
When Ms. Tang was not in detention, she found herself monitored. She once noted someone video-recording her on the street. They secretly took photos of her and asked her husband to identify her. She once took a taxi home and found police cruisers and motorcycles waiting outside. She was once arrested while grabbing a quick meal outside.
Her phone was also tapped. She went to Chengdu (the capital city of Sichuan Province) around April 2005 to attend her nephew’s wedding. The police accused her of going to the capital city to appeal for Falun Gong, and followed her there to monitor her.
A surveillance camera was installed on a tree facing her bedroom. The police rented the apartment unit facing hers and had people monitor her around the clock. They did not retreat or remove the camera until June 2009 when she was arrested again.
Sentenced to 3.5 Years
Ms. Tang returned home at around 5 p.m. on June 23, 2009, to see three strangers searching her home. Only her mute brother, who lived with her at the time, was there. The police confiscated her Falun Gong books, a laptop computer, two printers, a laminator, audio and video teachings of Falun Gong, and a portrait of Falun Gong’s founder.
She was taken to the Dashanping Police Station and later the Luzhou City Detention Center. She refused to wear the inmates’ uniform, and guard Liu Xiaoling kept her handcuffed for one week. She was not allowed to shower, and her armpits smelled and festered. Tang Derong from the 610 Office interrogated her.
The Jiangyang District Court tried her around late December 2010. Prior to the trial, she was not given a copy of the indictment as required by law. She was only notified of the trial one day prior.
There were no spectators at the trial as her family was not notified of the secret hearing. She was not given a chance to testify in her own defense. Only the judges, prosecutor, and five bailiffs were present.
The police seized several thousands of yuan in cash from Ms. Tang’s home but the prosecutor said in court that the confiscated money was only three one-yuan bills. The amount of the confiscated Falun Gong materials was listed as several times more than the actual items seized from her home.
Ms. Tang was sentenced to three and a half years days after the trial. She submitted an appeal but it was withheld by the detention center. A guard claimed that her appeal had been lost and that it’d be no use to file another appeal. The guard notified her verbally a few days later that her appeal had been rejected.
Her family managed to find out about her prison sentence and see her before her prison transfer. She was admitted to the Sichuan Province Women’s Prison on February 8, 2010.
The prison guards ordered Ms. Tang to shout “report – I am a criminal” for everything she needed, including using the restroom. They arranged two people (which later increased to five) to monitor her around the clock in two shifts. The monitors forced her to study materials smearing Falun Gong and its founder.
One day Ms. Tang had some heartburn symptoms and was given a physical exam. No diseases were detected but she was given two unknown injections. She felt pain afterwards.
Pension Suspended Since October 2010
While Ms. Tang was serving time, human resources director Kong Xiaomin at her school suspended her pension beginning in October 2010. The monthly benefit slips still issued to her stated that 3,797 yuan was deducted. Other retirees enjoyed cost-of-living adjustments and other retiree benefits but she was denied all of those too.
Ms. Tang was released in December 2012. In 2015, her school renewed everyone’s health insurance card. Kong instructed the human resources department to not issue her a new one.
Ms. Tang went to her school numerous times to seek her pension reinstatement, but to no avail. She went again on October 9, 2016, and a woman security officer surnamed Li talked to her briefly before calling in officers from the Beicheng Police Station. Several male officers dragged her out of the office building and into their cruiser. At the police station, they pricked her fingers to impress her fingerprints. They did not release her until 8 p.m. that night. In 2019 when she went to her school again, she was not even allowed to enter the office building.
The school administration told her that they had been saving her pension benefits aside and would return the money to her as soon as she wrote a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She filed a complaint to the Luzhou City Municipal Department and was told that they had no jurisdiction over the school. She then filed an open information request to the provincial government on October 10, 2020, requesting to know the legal basis for her pension suspension. She never received a response.
Related Articles in Chinese:
Related Reports:
The Benefits of Falun Gong (Part 1): Academics
Ms. Tang Xuzhen, a Retired Associate Professor from Luzhou Medical Institute, Secretly Sentenced
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