For 27 years, followers of Falun Gong, the meditation movement founded in China in 1992, have been relentlessly persecuted by the country’s communist dictatorship. Falun Gong practitioners are imprisoned in camps and tortured; according to reports by independent experts, large numbers have also fallen victim to forced organ harvesting. Even elderly people continue to face state persecution: 84-year-old Liu Huiju from Heilongjiang, China’s northernmost province, who had practised Falun Gong for 30 years, died in custody on 7 May 2026. According to the online information service “Bitter Winter”, her death was not made public until 25 July.

In early July 2025, police had Liu taken from her home in Shuangyashan against her will in an ambulance, allegedly for a medical examination. Since May 2020, she had been subjected to severe repression, including a search of her home, house arrest, a prosecutorial investigation and court proceedings. She was sentenced to eighteen months’ imprisonment and a fine. However, she had heart disease and suffered from high blood pressure. Despite being taken to the emergency department several times for resuscitation, she was never certified as medically unfit for detention.