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A bedridden, nearly deaf man weighing less than he has in years. His wife of decades, dead from the stress of years in hiding. And a judge who allegedly told the family: imprisonment is still on the table as long as the old man can swallow a few spoonfuls of porridge.

This is the case of Xu Shujun — a 94-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Jixi City in China's northeastern Heilongjiang Province — and it has drawn international attention as a stark illustration of the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) ongoing campaign against the spiritual practice now in its 26th year.

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A Decades-Old Case That Refuses to Die

The legal saga began on August 30, 2017, when Xu and his wife, Wang Chuanyun, were arrested for hanging informational banners about the CCP's suppression of Falun Gong. At the time, Xu was around 85 and his wife 79. Both were released the same day in consideration of their age, and local prosecutors did not indict them.

Four years later, in 2021, authorities reversed course. The couple was indicted for the same 2017 incident and each sentenced to three years in prison and fined 20,000 yuan — nearly $3,000, or more than 20 times the average monthly retirement pension in Heilongjiang Province.

Rather than surrender to what they considered an unjust verdict, the elderly couple fled their home and lived in hiding for the next four years.

Four Years on the Run — and a Wife Who Didn't Survive

The years in exile were brutal. In August 2025, police tracked the couple to a rented dwelling, reportedly by pressuring their daughter for information. What followed was a relentless campaign of visits, interrogations, and forced medical examinations — all aimed at clearing Xu and his wife for incarceration.

Wang Chuanyun did not survive the ordeal. Her health had deteriorated sharply under the pressure of years in hiding and the renewed harassment. She died on September 16, 2025.

Her husband fared little better. According to documentation compiled by Minghui.org, a U.S.-based outlet that tracks the CCP's persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, Xu lost more than ten pounds, became confined to bed, required adult diapers, lost most of his hearing, and could barely consume more than a few spoonfuls of food per day.

"I Can Still Have Him Jailed as Long as He's Able to Eat"

Despite Xu's condition, a local judge — identified in reports by his surname, Gai — paid a visit in January 2026. The judge reportedly told Xu's daughter that her father was ineligible for medical parole because hospital records indicated he could live another five to six years.

The reported statement attributed to Judge Gai has become a focal point of international outrage: "While your father cannot take care of himself, I can still have him jailed as long as he's able to eat."

China's judiciary is not independent. Under the CCP's system, courts are structurally subordinate to the party's political priorities, and judges in politically sensitive cases — including those involving Falun Gong — regularly act in accordance with party directives rather than legal standards.

Not an Isolated Case: Hundreds Sentenced in 2025

Xu's case is not an anomaly. Among the 751 newly reported sentencing cases in 2025, 514 took place that year alone — with the delay in earlier cases caused by the CCP's strict information censorship, which aims to conceal the persecution from international scrutiny.

In a disturbing new development, many elderly practitioners — mostly in their 80s — were taken back into custody to serve time they had not previously been required to. In Heilongjiang Province, the CCP's Central Leading Group for Inspection Work ordered local authorities to ramp up the persecution and imprison Falun Gong practitioners. In Shandong Province, police took 84-year-old Wang Zhigeng to prison and stated they had orders to imprison all practitioners sentenced during the COVID-19 pandemic, regardless of age or health.

The provinces with the highest number of arrests include Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Hebei — regions that have historically been hotspots for suppression of the practice. In many instances, practitioners were arrested simply for possessing Falun Gong literature or sharing information about their faith.

Who Are Falun Gong Practitioners?

Falun Gong — also known as Falun Dafa — is a spiritual discipline rooted in meditation and the moral principles of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. It incorporates five gentle qigong exercises and gained widespread popularity across China during the 1990s. Official Chinese state reports from before the persecution began in 1999 estimated between 70 and 100 million practitioners nationwide.

According to a 2017 Freedom House report, between 7 and 20 million people still practice Falun Gong in China after more than 25 years of persecution — figures subsequently cited by the U.S. State Department and other government agencies.

The CCP banned the practice in July 1999, labeling it a threat to social stability. Since then, practitioners have faced arbitrary detention, forced labor, torture, and, in documented cases, death in custody.

The Lawyers Who Dare to Defend Them

Inside China, a small number of human rights lawyers have taken on Falun Gong cases — at enormous personal risk. According to documentation from Minghui.org, at least 68 lawyers defended Falun Gong practitioners in court in 2025, entering not-guilty pleas and citing China's own constitution and legal codes.

Their bravery has come at a steep cost. On July 9, 2015, Chinese authorities launched what became known as the "709 Crackdown" — an unprecedented nationwide assault on human rights lawyers. Police seized over 300 lawyers and activists. In the days and months that followed, many were forcibly disappeared and dozens arbitrarily detained.

Lawyers had represented many groups persecuted by authorities, including Tibetans, Falun Gong practitioners, feminist and LGBT advocates, Christians, and victims of state corruption.

Ten years on, prominent lawyers such as Xu Zhiyong and Ding Jiaxi remain in prison, while Gao Zhisheng — once named by China's Ministry of Justice as one of the country's ten top lawyers — has been forcibly disappeared since 2017. His wife and children fled to the United States and have received no information on his whereabouts or whether he is still alive.

In the decade since the crackdown, no Chinese authorities have been held accountable for the grave rights abuses committed against lawyers and human rights defenders.

A System Designed to Silence

The persecution of Falun Gong practitioners follows a predictable pattern that human rights organizations have documented for more than two decades. Practitioners are subject to surveillance through tracking devices and facial recognition cameras, especially if they take part in peaceful protests or share information in public. Between January 2022 and April 2024 alone, at least 142 practitioners were detained after being identified by these cameras while practicing or spreading information peacefully.

Chinese authorities have sentenced hundreds of prisoners of conscience to long-term imprisonment, with Falun Gong practitioners representing the single largest religious group among those currently documented in detention by the Chinese Human Rights Defenders database.

For Xu Shujun — bedridden, grieving, and barely able to eat — the machinery of repression has not stopped. His daughter continues to push back against the sentence. Human rights advocates and legal observers around the world are watching.

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Sources

1. Minghui.org — Documentation of Xu Shujun case and 2025 sentencing reports: https://en.minghui.org
2. Human Rights Watch — "China: 10 Years Since '709 Crackdown,' Lawyers Still Under Fire" (July 2025): https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/07/06/china-10-years-since-709-crackdown-lawyers-still-under-fire
3. Amnesty International — "Chinese Government Impunity for Crackdown on Lawyers Fuels Decade of Repression" (July 2025): https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2025/07/chinese-government-impunity-for-crackdown-on-lawyers-fuels-decade-of-repression/
4. Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) — Prisoners of Conscience Database & Gao Zhisheng Disappearance Report (August 2025): https://www.nchrd.org/2025/08/china-release-lawyer-gao-zhisheng-forcibly-disappeared-since-2017/
5. UK Home Office — Country Policy and Information Note: Falun Gong, China (November 2025): https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/china-country-policy-and-information-notes/country-policy-and-information-note-falun-gong-china-november-2025-accessible
6. USCIRF Testimony — "Freedom Forsaken: Falun Gong and Beijing's Playbook for Repression" (October 2025): https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/Falun%20Gong--USCIRF%20Testimony%20Freedom%20Forsaken.pdf
7. Bitter Winter — "Falun Gong Repression Intensifies: Practitioner Yao Jiaxiu Sentenced to Five Years" (August 2025): https://bitterwinter.org/falun-gong-repression-intensifies-practitioner-yao-jiaxiu-sentenced-to-five-years/

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