Families Plead for Jailed Relatives as Falun Gong Practitioners Rally Outside Chinese Embassy in Washington

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A Daughter's Cry From the Sidewalk

Standing in front of China's diplomatic outpost in the U.S. capital, Alisa Zhou, an American citizen, called on Chinese authorities to free her mother, Wang Youmei, who has been held in the central Chinese city of Wuhan since April 15. Zhou's mother was among 17 people swept up in a single day in what appears to have been a coordinated mass arrest targeting Falun Gong practitioners across the city.

The family has been kept almost entirely in the dark. Requests to visit Wang were denied. The family's lawyer has been unable to obtain even the most basic information — who is handling the case, or what stage it is at. Three of those arrested were reportedly sent to a brainwashing center whose location has not been disclosed to relatives.

"It seems the authorities are trying to shut everyone out, then they can do whatever they want," Zhou said at the rally.

From 15-Day Detention to Criminal Case — Without Explanation

A second speaker at the event was Tong Shuzhen, a New York resident whose sister, Tong Shuying, was taken from her workplace by Wuhan police on the same date. Initially, the family received a notice stating she had been placed under 15-day administrative detention for practicing Falun Gong. Then, on May 1 — just as relatives were preparing to bring her home — authorities informed them that the case had been "upgraded" to the criminal level.

No formal documents were provided. No explanation was given. No timeline was offered.

Li Shuangde, a former human rights lawyer in China, noted that such a procedure clearly violates Chinese law: a written notice specifying the place of detention and the grounds for criminal detention is legally required. The absence of such documentation, advocates say, is a deliberate tactic — it leaves families powerless and detainees vulnerable.

According to Minghui, a website that documents persecution cases in China, Tong Shuying is now being held at Wuhan No. 1 Detention Center.

A Pattern of Fear, Not an Isolated Incident

Tong Shuzhen's appeal at the embassy was personal in a way that goes beyond her sister's current detention. Before coming to the United States in 2016, she was herself arrested four times in China for her faith, leaving her children unattended each time.

"Once, after raiding my home, the police pushed me into a police car and took me away," she recalled. "My young son ran after the vehicle, crying out 'mommy' again and again."

Her story is not unusual. The Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC), a U.S.-based advocacy group, documented a sharp rise in 2025 in the number of practitioners being targeted — particularly elderly adherents and those who had managed to avoid arrest for over a decade. Between February and April 2025 alone, at least 53 cases were recorded of practitioners who had previously been jailed in the early 2000s but then avoided detention for more than ten years — only to be arrested again.

According to reports tracked in early 2025, at least 136 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested and around 189 others faced harassment by Chinese authorities in just the opening weeks of the year. Beyond arrests, the pressure extended to families: authorities reportedly coerced relatives into pressuring practitioners to renounce their beliefs, with threats of job loss or withdrawal of social benefits.

What Falun Gong Is — and Why Beijing Fears It

Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual practice that combines slow meditative exercises with a moral philosophy grounded in the principles of truthfulness, compassion, and tolerance. It was introduced publicly in China in 1992 and spread rapidly through the 1990s, drawing tens of millions of followers.

In 1999, then-CCP leader Jiang Zemin ordered a nationwide campaign to eradicate the practice, reportedly viewing its widespread popularity as a political threat to Communist Party authority. Since then, the campaign has never stopped. The Chinese government continues to classify Falun Gong as an "evil cult" and subjects its members to harassment, arbitrary imprisonment, and torture, according to Human Rights Watch's 2025 World Report.

Amnesty International has documented that Falun Gong practitioners continue to face imprisonment in China — including one case in 2024 in which an 80-year-old woman in Beijing was sentenced to five years in prison.

Reports from human rights monitors and survivor testimony describe a range of abuses including lengthy prison sentences, forced labor, and — in the most extreme documented cases — forced organ harvesting from living detainees.

Tiananmen's Shadow: Dissidents Unite

The May 30 demonstration coincided with the run-up to the 37th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre — the June 4, 1989 crackdown in which the Chinese Communist Party deployed military forces to crush a peaceful pro-democracy movement, killing hundreds, possibly thousands, of unarmed students and workers. The anniversary remains a taboo subject in mainland China to this day.

Alongside the Falun Gong rally, a separate group of pro-democracy activists had gathered in front of the same embassy to mark the occasion. The two crowds stood side by side.

One of those present was Wei Jingsheng, one of China's most prominent living dissidents. Wei served more than 18 years in Chinese prisons for advocating democracy — including time in forced labor camps and years on death row — after posting a landmark essay in 1978 calling for political reform. He was exiled to the United States in the 1990s and has continued his advocacy ever since.

At the rally, Wei signed a petition urging U.S. lawmakers to support legislation aimed at sanctioning perpetrators of forced organ harvesting in China.

Wei had also spoken days earlier at a congressional commemoration of the Tiananmen anniversary, alongside fellow dissident Wang Dan, hosted by the House Select Committee on China.

A Broader Crackdown — and Growing International Attention

The Washington rally comes amid a documented escalation of pressure on Falun Gong practitioners not just inside China, but internationally. In April 2025, more than 70 Falun Gong practitioners were arrested by Malaysian police two days before Chinese President Xi Jinping's state visit to the country — a pattern analysts described as transnational repression linked to CCP pressure. The incident drew a formal expression of concern from the U.S. State Department.

The European Parliament, too, has weighed in. In a resolution, MEPs called on China to immediately end the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, demanded the release of all detained practitioners, and urged EU member states to suspend extradition treaties with China.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom's 2025 Annual Report confirmed that Chinese authorities "continued to target Falun Gong," with documented cases of arrest, imprisonment, and deaths in custody.

"The Communist Party's Days Are Numbered"

For Tong Shuzhen, still waiting for news of her sister, the legal and political arguments are secondary. Her message outside the embassy was simple: "I hope the U.S. government and every person of conscience could lend a hand supporting them and rescuing them."

Wei Jingsheng offered a broader assessment of China's political trajectory. Despite decades of imprisonment and forced exile, he said he had observed what he described as a fundamental shift in how ordinary Chinese citizens view their government. Where earlier generations once placed hope in reforming the Communist Party from within, he said, that belief has largely collapsed.

"People have realized that the Communist Party cares nothing about reasons," he said. "What everyone is most interested in right now is when the Communist Party will collapse, and how it will collapse."

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Sources

1. Falun Dafa Information Center – Revitalized Repression: How Chinese Security Forces are Cracking Down Harder on Elderly, Veteran Falun Gong Practitioners (2025): https://faluninfo.net/new-research-revitalized-repression/
2. Human Rights Watch – World Report 2025: China: https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/china
3. Amnesty International – Human Rights in China: https://www.amnesty.org/en/location/asia-and-the-pacific/east-asia/china/report-china/
4. U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF) – Freedom Forsaken: Falun Gong and Beijing's Playbook for Repression (2025): https://www.uscirf.gov/sites/default/files/Falun%20Gong--USCIRF%20Testimony%20Freedom%20Forsaken.pdf
5. European Parliament – Resolution on the Ongoing Persecution of Falun Gong in China: https://oeil.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/en/document-summary?id=1772499
6. ICIJ – Ahead of Xi Jinping's state visit to Malaysia, police arrested dozens of Falun Gong followers (December 2025): https://www.icij.org/investigations/china-targets/ahead-of-xi-jinpings-state-visit-to-malaysia-police-arrested-dozens-of-falun-gong-followers/
7. George W. Bush Presidential Center – Wei Jingsheng: Tiananmen Massacre: https://www.bushcenter.org/freedom-collection/wei-jingsheng-tiananmen-massacre
8. U.S. House Select Committee on China – Moolenaar Leads Tiananmen Commemoration (June 5, 2025): https://chinaselectcommittee.house.gov/media/press-releases/moolenaar-leads-tiananmen-commemoration-demands-end-dc-beijing-ties-and-stands
9. The Hong Kong Post – China's Relentless Crackdown on Falun Gong Practitioners Escalates in 2025 (April 2025): https://thehongkongpost.com/2025/04/01/chinas-relentless-crackdown-on-falun-gong-practitioners-escalates-in-2025/
10. UK Government – 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

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