(Minghui.org) A 78-year-old woman in Anshan City, Liaoning Province, is appealing a three-year prison term for practicing Falun Gong.
Ms. Chen Suyuan was taking a walk in a residential area on the afternoon of January 20, 2026, when she saw two Falun Gong booklets on the ground near the entrance to one apartment building. She picked them up, only to be seized by two women who appeared out of nowhere. One of them went inside the building and emerged with eight more booklets. They accused Ms. Chen of distributing them in the building. They took her to the Liqiao Residential Committee Office. One of the women called the Lishan District Police Department, which then dispatched officers from the Shuangshan Police Station to arrest Ms. Chen.
Ms. Chen told the police that she did not distribute the booklets. They refused to listen and took her to the Anshan City First Detention Center. When her lawyer visited her in early February, she was carried out by two people and appeared extremely weak. She told her lawyer that, when the police took her for a physical exam, they dragged her and pulled her, causing her severe injuries. She now relies on others for care.
Ms. Chen had been very healthy before her arrest. Her family questioned the police as to whether she was abused in custody, which caused her health to decline so quickly. The police denied she was ever abused.
The Lishan District Police Department submitted Ms. Chen’s case to the Lishan District Procuratorate shortly after her arrest. The prosecutor returned the case, citing insufficient evidence. The police re-submitted the case on March 17. The prosecutor indicted Ms. Chen on April 2 and moved her case to the Lishan District Court.
Ms. Chen stood trial on April 22 and was sentenced to three years on June 1. She has appealed to the Anshan City Intermediate Court.
Ms. Chen took up Falun Gong in 1996. After only a few months, the ailments that had been tormenting her for years--including low blood pressure and an abnormally fast heartbeat--disappeared.
As she remained firm in her faith after the Chinese Communist Party ordered the persecution in 1999, she has been repeatedly targeted. She was arrested on October 25, 2012, while walking with her husband to a supermarket. The police forcibly took photos of her and ransacked her home. She was interrogated and forced to give her fingerprints at the police station before being released in the evening. Terrified by the police, her husband died suddenly a month later, on November 27.
Ms. Chen was arrested again on April 15, 2020, by officers from the Lingshan Police Station. She was held at the Anshan City Women’s Detention Center and later sentenced to one and a half years by the Lishan District Court on August 10 in the same year.
78-Year-Old Woman Detained for Her Faith in Falun Gong, Health Quickly Declines