Chinese Woman Imprisoned Again After Losing 3 Family Members to CCP’s War Against Faith
Sun Caiyan’s children have already lost their father and both grandfathers as the result of the regime’s persecution.
Having already endured the loss of three family members due to the Chinese communist regime’s persecution, Sun Caiyan became, once again, ensnared in its brutal campaign.
This is the second time Sun has been imprisoned for her belief—in 2014 she was sentenced to 39 months. Sun’s two children have already lost their father and both grandfathers as the result of the Chinese regime’s 25-year campaign against Falun Gong.
Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, is a spiritual self-cultivation practice with five slow-moving and gentle exercises and moral teachings based on the tenets of truthfulness, compassion, and forbearance. It encourages people to assimilate to these moral values in their day-to-day life.
However, then-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader Jiang Zemin viewed Falun Gong’s moral teachings and growing popularity as a threat and in 1999, he launched a campaign of persecution to eradicate the practice. Its practitioners—numbering up to 100 million according to estimates at the time—have since faced mass arrest, lengthy imprisonment, and torture.
Family Saga
Sun’s husband Guo Qi, also a Falun Gong practitioner, died in 2021 after enduring incarceration and severe torture in a labor camp, according to Minghui. He was 51.
Guo was abducted on Feb. 19, 2001 by police from Heishijiao Police Station of Dalian City. He was taken to Dalian Labor Camp to serve a three-year term handed down by the police without due process, a Minghui report states.
To force Guo to renounce his belief, the police in the labor camp used various forms of torture upon him: he was stripped naked and beaten with a wolf-tooth club, shocked with multiple electric batons on sensitive areas, and subjected to force-feeding. Guo developed scabies all over his body, and endured severe swelling, an inability to urinate, and difficulty breathing, Minghui reported.
In February 2002, the labor camp police took Guo to a hospital, where he was diagnosed with an acute kidney problem that could cause his death any time.
The police forced Guo’s family to pay for his medical bill.
After 19 days of treatment, Guo was discharged and returned home. Local police continued to harass him and attempted to take him back to the labor camp, Minghui reported.
Guo and his wife left their home and children to live in hiding.
The incidents took their toll on Sun’s father-in-law and father, who died in 2016 and 2019, respectively.
Guo’s health also continued to decline, Minghui reported. He passed away in the hospital on June 15, 2021, after his internal organs failed and he developed sepsis.
He left behind his 49-year-old wife, 20-year-old daughter, 12-year-old son, and mother and mother-in-law in their 80s.
Nationwide Persecution
The family’s experience mirrors the reality faced by millions of Falun Gong practitioners living under the CCP. The Falun Dafa Information Center (FDIC) has documented at least 5,000 deaths of Falun Gong practitioners across the country from the ongoing persecution.
In the two months of September and October this year, Minghui verified 31 deaths due to the CCP’s persecution, although the FDIC believes the actual number is much higher due to the regime’s strict censorship and the state-sanctioned practice of forced organ harvesting.
“For two and a half decades, PRC authorities have targeted Falun Gong practitioners and their families in a campaign of abuses and rights violations,” State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller at the time, using the official name for the Chinese regime. “We call upon the PRC to cease its repressive campaign and release all who have been imprisoned for their beliefs.”