Liu Huiju died after repeated medical emergencies and prolonged pressure from local authorities.
by Yang Feng
A woman of eighty-four, frail and repeatedly hospitalized, was taken away on a stretcher in early July 2025 and died in custody nine months later. Her family and fellow practitioners learned of her passing on July 25, weeks after she had already been buried amid official silence. The story of Liu Huiju, a longtime Falun Gong practitioner from Shuangyashan in Heilongjiang, is another example of how elderly dissidents are pursued until the very end.
Born in 1942 and living in the Nanshi residential area of Shuangyashan, Liu began practicing Falun Gong in 1996. After the nationwide campaign launched in 1999, she was repeatedly targeted by local officials. In May 2020, she was arrested, her home was searched, and she spent months under residential surveillance before being released on bail. The case advanced in 2021, first to the procuratorate and then to the court.
Her health deteriorated under the pressure of the investigation, with severe hypertension and a recurring heart condition. Unable to travel, she was the subject of a hearing held in her home on November 30, 2021. The authorities sentenced her to one and a half years in prison and imposed a fine of one thousand yuan. Because she was extremely weak, the court did not enforce the sentence immediately, although it intended to do so.
On June 12, 2025, eight officers entered her home and tried to take her away. The detention center refused to admit her due to her health, and she was sent back home. Police from the Fuan Station kept calling to check whether she had recovered enough to be detained. In early July, they returned, strapped her to a stretcher, and placed her in an ambulance. They claimed she was being taken for a medical examination. After the checkup, she was delivered to the detention center regardless of her condition. On July 31, she was transferred to Heilongjiang Women’s Prison, a jail notorious for mistreatment and torture of Falun Gong practitioners and nicknamed “the cemetery of Falun Gong ladies.”
Over the next nine months, she was hospitalized four times for emergency resuscitation. During one of these hospitalizations, her family saw her and realized she no longer recognized them. She died in prison on May 7, 2026, shortly after her eighty-fourth birthday. The authorities did not promptly inform her relatives.
Liu Huiju’s final months reveal a system that keeps advancing even when the person it targets is no longer able to endure its pressure. An elderly woman in deteriorating health was moved through procedures that ignored her condition and stripped away her final dignity. Her death in custody and the delayed communication to her family show how repression persists even at the threshold of life.
Yang Feng uses a pseudonym for security reasons.
