China: Falun Gong Practitioner Dies After Years of Persecution

Yang Xiaojing and Cao Dong married in February 2000. However, their life together was to be short-lived.

Ten days after their wedding, the pair was arrested by Beijing authorities for their practice of Falun Gong, a traditional Chinese spiritual practice persecuted by the Communist regime.

In May 2001, Yang was sentenced to 18 months of hard labor at the Beijing Women’s Labor Camp. In 2004, she was sentenced to another two-and-half years.  During her detention, prison officials and inmates tortured her. Her body became extremely weak and she developed severe neck injuries.

In May 2006, Cao Dong, who had already served four-and-a-half years in prison, sought his wife’s release. Cao met with Edward McMillan-Scott, the Vice President of the European Parliament. Cao told him about the brutal persecution that he and other Falun Gong practitioners had experienced. Two hours after the meeting, Cao was kidnapped and sent back to Gansu province where he was again detained. In February 2007, he was sentenced to five years imprisonment for meeting with a foreign official.

His wife Yang Xiojing was released in August 2006, and she began a campaign to free Cao Dong. But authorities’ continued harassment of Yang took a toll on her health. In August last year, she was diagnosed with lymphoma and her condition continued to get worse.

On October 1st this year, 45-year-old Yang died on the way to the hospital with her elderly father by her side. Cao Dong, who is still in prison, never had a chance to see her.

(NTDTV)