(Minghui.org) An 85-year-old woman in Lanzhou City, Gansu Province, was detained for one day a year ago for her faith in Falun Gong, Minghui.org learned recently.
Ms. Zhang Jianhua, born in March 1941, was getting ready to eat dinner at 6 p.m. on October 13, 2025, when she received a phone call from the Xiaoxihu Police Station. The caller ordered her to open the door. She did and saw five officers.
The woman officer, who was said to be a supervisor, produced a photo and asked Ms. Zhang if she was the person in the photo. She said yes, and the officer revealed that she had been reported for talking to people about Falun Gong.
The woman officer ordered Ms. Zhang to take out the hat and clothes she was wearing when the photo was taken. After taking photos of the items, the officer flashed her ID before instructing her subordinates to raid the home. They confiscated four Falun Gong books, an MP3 audio player, and QR codes.
Ms. Zhang was then driven to the bus station in downtown Lanzhou. That was where she was photographed talking to people about Falun Gong. The police attempted to take her photo at the bus station, but she refused. They summoned her daughter to the bus station.
The police next took Ms. Zhang and her daughter to the Xizhan Police Station, and she again refused to be photographed. They then took her to the Xiaoxihu Police Station for interrogation.
The woman officer ordered Ms. Zhang to detail how she talked to people about Falun Gong. She said a young man had sat next to her in the waiting area of the bus station. She gave him a QR code to bypass China’s Internet firewall to access uncensored overseas news. Unbeknownst to her, the man was a railway police officer, and he reported her to the police.
After the interrogation, Ms. Zhang was forced to give a blood sample. But she refused to have her weight measured. The police then tied her up and put her on the scale. She struggled to catch her breath and sat down on the scale.
The police were unable to measure her weight and got her to sit in a chair. She began to shiver, which got worse by the minute. The police offered to call in an ambulance or get her an oxygen tank. She declined, and they called higher-ups for instruction. She overheard the boss telling the police to rush her home safe. Her daughter, who had been accompanying her as she was moved through different places, signed a bail release paperwork on her behalf.
The police drove Ms. Zhang home at 3 a.m. on October 14, 2025, then drove her daughter home. They kept harassing her daughter and son on the phone after that. Her son was unable to cope and died. The cause of death is unknown.
The police revealed that they had already arranged for Ms. Zhang’s sentencing before the arrest on October 13, 2025. They didn’t say what the exact prison term was but said she would be allowed to serve time at home. They later submitted “evidence” against her to the Chengguan District Procuratorate, which sent a person to depose her at home. She asked what crime she had allegedly committed. That person responded she “used a cult organization to undermine law enforcement,” a standard pretext used by the communist regime to frame and imprison Falun Gong practitioners.
Ms. Zhang demanded to know the legal basis, and that person had no answer. He then left.
It is unclear whether Ms. Zhang had indeed been sentenced because the procuratorate’s deposition usually happens before issuing an indictment, not after a prison sentence has been announced.
Prior to her latest persecution episode, Ms. Zhang was given one year of forced labor on October 23, 2008, ten days of administrative detention on September 9, 2015, and sentenced to three years following an arrest on July 18, 2018. While serving time in the Gansu Province Women’s Prison, she was brutally beaten, deprived of sleep, deprived of adequate food, and even forced to drink urine.
After being released on June 3, 2021, Ms. Zhang had her pension suspended and faced frequent harassment from the Xiaoxihu Police Station officers.
How Falun Gong Practitioners Are Tortured in Gansu Provincial Women's Prison
81-year-old Woman Harassed After Wrongful Prison Sentence, Ordered to Return Her Pension
80-year-old Woman Forced to Drink Urine While Imprisoned for Her Faith