71-Year-Old Falun Gong Practitioner Tortured to Death in Chongqing

Tang Fenghua’s case was not the first. It will not be the last. Another practitioner jailed in the same notorious prison died two days after him.

By Yang Feng

May 8, 2025

Tang Fenghua, a 71-year-old man from Chongqing, fell seriously ill while imprisoned at Yongchuan Prison, where he had been tortured due to his faith in Falun Gong. He was transferred to Chongqing Second Municipal Hospital for treatment but passed away there on April 17, 2025. His family was informed only recently.

Tang owned a successful furniture store near the old military subdistrict in Yongchuan. He has been repeatedly detained since 1999 and served two prison sentences totalling five years.

On April 10, 2013, he was detained for distributing Falun Gong materials. He was held at the Yongchuan District Detention Center and sentenced to three years of imprisonment. He served his sentence at Yongchuan Prison in Chongqing and was released in January 2016.

On December 6, 2016, Tang was arrested and detained for over ten days. Shortly after his release, he was re-arrested on January 10, 2017, for distributing Falun Gong materials. He was sentenced to two years and released on January 9, 2019.

Tang experienced several instances of police harassment from August 31, 2019, to March 2021.

On April 28, 2021, two Yongchuan District Domestic Security Division officers again arrested Tang. They confiscated his copy of Falun Gong’s “Zhuan Falun” and took him to Yongchuan District People’s Hospital for a physical exam before transferring him to the Yongchuan Prison.

On September 25, 2021, Tang experienced vomiting blood and was admitted to Chongqing Second Municipal Hospital for treatment. He was diagnosed with tuberculosis and discharged on October 9, 2021.

The timing of Tang’s last arrest is unclear. He was reportedly detained in late 2021 or early 2022 and sentenced to 4 or 4.5 years in prison.

In a parallel case, also connected with the notorious Yongchuan Prison, another Falun Gong practitioner called Dai Xianming passed away on April 19, 2025, at the same Chongqing Second Municipal Hospital, just two days after Tang. Dai had been released from Yongchuan Prison in August 2024. He complained about torture and inadequate treatment of his diabetes.

Source: bitterwinter.org