Falun Gong Practitioner Chen Yan From Liaoning Dies Three Days After Being Imprisoned

On July 19, Falun Gong practitioners in Kaohsiung held an event titled “26th Anniversary of Falun Gong’s Anti-Persecution—Only by Disintegrating the CCP Can the Persecution Stop” at the Fengshan Caogong Canal Waterfront Park Plaza. (Zheng Shunli/The Dajiyuan)

[People News] Falun Gong practitioner Chen Yan, age 45, from Benxi City, Liaoning Province, was abducted in July last year. In May this year, she was wrongfully sentenced to five years and taken to Liaoning Women’s Prison, where she tragically died three days later.

According to a comprehensive report by Li Jiesi of The Dajiyuan, citing Minghui.org, after graduating from university, Chen Yan originally had a stable job. In 2015, she was abducted for distributing Falun Gong truth-clarifying materials and taken to the Benxi City Detention Center. During this time, she was persecuted with unknown drugs, beaten and cursed, and subjected to torture such as the “stretching torture.” She was then illegally sentenced to three years and taken to Liaoning Women’s Prison, where the drug persecution continued. After being released, her body was unable to recover for a long time.

On July 14, 2024, while distributing truth-clarifying materials near Liubei Station in Xihu District of Benxi City, she was stopped and recorded on video by a community worker. She was reported to the local police station and subsequently abducted.

On July 15, police put a black hood over her head and took her to the Benxi City Detention Center. During this time, she was repeatedly beaten severely by inmates, with multiple injuries across her body. She was emotionally depressed, slow to respond, and in a very poor mental state.

She recounted that on the afternoon of August 5, 2024, in the exercise yard under the watch of guard Wang Naihan, several inmates knocked her to the ground. When she just stood up, she was knocked down again. She did not know how long the beating lasted. She was dazed, in pain all over, unable to move her neck, and suffering unbearable headaches. She asked Wang Naihan to investigate and deal with the matter, but Wang said, “Get out!”

On January 1, 2025, in the cell under the same guard, a drug dealer surnamed Ma struck the back of Chen Yan’s head. The next day, a murderer surnamed Li hit her right eye and knocked off her glasses. She wanted to write a complaint letter, but the guards refused to give her paper and pen. She repeatedly requested to meet the prosecutor stationed at the detention center but was never granted a meeting.

Chen Yan was framed and sent to the procuratorate and court. Under the obstruction of Judge Wang Mian, her family-appointed defender could not review her case file and could not meet her.

The court scheduled an illegal hearing for December 17, 2024, but Chen Yan refused to attend because she had been beaten by inmates and the detention center ignored it. The hearing was canceled.

On January 15, 2025, the court again arranged an illegal hearing. She again refused to appear because she had been beaten again in early January and still could not meet a prosecutor.

Only after her family made repeated requests did she finally meet the prosecutor, Che Dingding, in mid-January, but he did nothing and even covered up the truth about her being beaten.

Because the detention center never addressed the repeated assaults, Chen Yan refused to attend the third scheduled hearing in February this year.

On May 15, personnel from the Xihu District Court went to the Benxi City Detention Center and forcibly held a fourth hearing inside her cell.

At that time, Chen Yan had already been illegally detained for 10 months. She looked dark and thin. She did not acknowledge the illegal trial. During the proceedings, she went to the restroom once, and afterward stood by the restroom, so Judge Wang Mian conducted the “trial” facing the toilet pit.

During the illegal hearing, Chen Yan repeatedly shouted, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!” Those present went through the motions and ignored her.

On June 26, she was illegally sentenced to five years and fined 5,000 yuan. She immediately appealed.

On September 18, her father again invited a lawyer to meet her at the detention center. She was pushed out in a wheelchair. Her legs could no longer move, her hair was matted together, and her entire body trembled.

On September 19, the Benxi Intermediate Court rejected her appeal and illegally upheld the original verdict.

In October, her parents visited her twice, and both times she was wheeled out. She told her parents that her body was extremely weak, she needed to hold onto walls when using the restroom, and she had to support herself with one hand on the floor to move. She said she could hardly hold on until she returned home.

The final sight her parents saw of their daughter was her shouting, “Falun Dafa is good! Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance is good!”

After the meeting, her parents asked the deputy director of the detention center when they could see her again. He said it would be the last time, because in November Chen Yan would be thrown into prison and could only be seen there.

On the afternoon of November 5, Chen Yan’s parents received a call from the deputy director, saying she had been transferred to Liaoning Women’s Prison. Her father asked, “She was already like that, pushed in with a wheelchair—would the prison still accept her?” The deputy director replied, “Your child is normal, nothing wrong, why wouldn’t they accept her?” The detention center claimed Chen Yan was faking illness.

On the morning of November 8, her father received a call from the prison saying Chen Yan was critically ill and undergoing emergency treatment at the hospital. Her parents rushed there, but Chen Yan was already dead.

Chen Yan’s mother questioned: “My daughter was sent here on the afternoon of the 5th. When the prison accepted her, it meant she was normal and met the standards for intake. Why did she die in just three days?” Everyone present remained silent.

After the autopsy, her parents asked for the autopsy report. A prosecutor told them to get it from the prison. They asked whom to contact—no one would say. Only after her mother repeatedly insisted did they receive an office number, but it was disconnected.

After the autopsy, while dressing Chen Yan’s body and turning her over, black sticky fluid flowed from her mouth. The forensic doctor did not test it.

Chen Yan’s death soon after entering prison is not unique. Regardless of whether Falun Gong practitioners are physically fit for detention—including those in their 80s or 90s—so long as they practice Falun Gong and believe in “Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance,” CCP personnel will detain and persecute them, often causing them to die shortly after imprisonment. Here are just two examples.

On March 15, 2021, Falun Gong practitioner Hu Hanjiao, age 53, from Hanchuan City, Hubei Province, went to the Fenshui Town area and was abducted by police for telling people how to avoid the epidemic. On November 9, 2021, she was taken to Wuhan Women’s Prison. After only 13 days, her husband received a call saying she had died in the hospital from illness.

Her family requested her medical records and to view her body, but the prison refused. It is reported that the Hanchuan City Political and Legal Affairs Committee intervened and forced the family to give up hiring a lawyer to investigate.

Ma Junting, an 86-year-old Falun Gong practitioner and former senior engineer at Shandong University of Science and Technology, was illegally sentenced in June 2019. Due to poor health, he was placed on “medical parole.” In 2025, the local public security, procuratorate, and court claimed that his previously “completed” parole was void and forcibly abducted the wheelchair-bound Ma to Jinan Women’s Prison. In just two months, he was persecuted into a coma and died within days, full of injustice.△