(Minghui.org) A 58-year-old woman is facing prosecution for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Cui Yuling, of Linqing City, Liaocheng City, Shandong Province, was arrested on the evening of January 19, 2026, by officers from the Linqing City Domestic Security Office. She was taken to the Liaocheng City Detention Center and issued a formal arrest warrant on February 12. The police have submitted her case to the Linqing City Procuratorate. Her family is working with a lawyer to seek her release.
Ms. Cui, a former employee of the Linqing City state-owned cotton mill, took up Falun Gong in May 1998. Many of her ailments, including chronic rhinitis, gastritis, cervical spondylosis, and chest tightness, soon disappeared. After the persecution began a year later, she was repeatedly arrested for upholding her faith. Unable to cope with the persecution, her husband committed suicide around 2009.
Ms. Cui was arrested on the early morning of July 20, 1999, the day when the persecution officially started. She was taken to her workplace and forced to watch TV programs slandering Falun Gong. Her manager also ordered her to write a statement to renounce Falun Gong. She refused to comply and only wrote how she benefited from Falun Gong. Her manager didn’t allow her to leave and called her husband and other relatives for help in persuading her. Under pressure, her husband slapped her in the face in front of others.
Ms. Cui went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice Falun Gong in May 2000. She was arrested by officers of the Fengtai Police Station in Beijing. She was detained for 12 hours, beaten, and interrogated.
While doing Falun Gong exercises at an apple orchard in 2001, Ms. Cui was arrested and taken to the Linqing City Lockup. She held a hunger strike for five days and was subsequently released.
A group of officers broke into Ms. Cui’s home on the morning of August 2, 2009, and arrested her and her daughter, even though her daughter didn’t practice Falun Gong. The police interrogated both of them. They beat Ms. Cui’s daughter and tried to force her to reveal information about other practitioners. Both women were then taken to the Linqing City Detention Center, where they were forced to work without pay. Ms. Cui’s daughter became very weak and was unable to eat. She was taken to a hospital, and the guards threatened to force-feed her.
Ms. Cui’s husband struggled with a long-term illness, and the family relied on her sole income from driving an electric tricycle. The arrest of Ms. Cui and their daughter was a hard blow to him, and the confiscation of their only savings of 1,000 yuan by the police was the final straw. He had a mental breakdown and committed suicide.
While still mourning her husband’s death, Ms. Cui was given a 1.5-year labor camp term. She was admitted to the Jinan City First Women’s Forced Labor Camp on September 2, 2009. There, she was forced to watch propaganda materials slandering Falun Gong and sit on a small stool all day long. The inmates watched her closely and often intimidated her.
Ms. Cui was arrested again on October 30, 2015, after Li Jianjun, the chief of the Qingnian Police Station, and others scaled her fence and broke into her home. She was first held at the Linqing City Lockup for five days and then transferred to the Liaocheng City Detention Center, before being released on bail five months later.
For talking to people about Falun Gong at a farmers’ market, Ms. Cui was arrested on July 17, 2018, and detained for 15 days.
Over the next few years, the police repeatedly harassed Ms. Cui and her daughter, claiming that her bail condition from the 2015 arrest was still in force.
In April 2025, while searching for Ms. Cui, who had gone into hiding, the police harassed her fourth-grade granddaughter and asked her who took her to school.
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