(Minghui.org) Falun Gong practitioners in 45 countries submitted another list of Chinese Communist Party (CCP) officials who participated in the persecution of Falun Gong in July 2025, 26 years after the CCP ordered the persecution. The practitioners are urging their governments to hold the perpetrators accountable, barring them and/or their family members from entry and freezing their assets.
The 45 countries include The Five Eyes (the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand), all 27 countries in the European Union (EU), and 13 countries on other continents. The EU countries are Germany, France, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands, Poland, Sweden, Belgium, Ireland, Austria, Denmark, Romania, Czechia, Finland, Portugal, Greece, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria, Luxembourg, Croatia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Latvia, Estonia, Cyprus, and Malta. The remaining 13 countries are located in Asia, Europe, and the Americas: Japan, South Korea, Indonesia, Switzerland, Norway, Liechtenstein, Israel, Mexico, Argentina, Colombia, Chile, the Dominican Republic, and Paraguay.
According to a report published by the World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong (WOIPFG), the CCP highlighted a goal in a May 2024 meeting organized by the Ministry of Public Security: “Pay special attention to the cooperation between Falun Gong and Western politicians to sanction high-level Chinese leaders. Stop such behavior at all costs.”
Among the perpetrators listed was Wei Shiqiang, director of the Department of Ideological and Political Work of the Ministry of Education.
Perpetrator Information
Full Name of perpetrator: Wei (last name) Shiqiang (first name) (魏士强)Gender: MaleCountry: ChinaDate/year of Birth: UnknownPlace of Birth: Unknown
Title or Position
July 2006 – January 2015: deputy director of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Education
January 2015 – April 2016: inspector of the Personnel Department of the Ministry of Education
April 2016 – August 2018: executive deputy secretary of the Party Committee of the Ministry of Education
August 2018 – Present: director of the Department of Ideological and Political Work of the Ministry of Education
Main Crimes
Since the CCP launched the persecution of Falun Gong on July 20, 1999, students and faculty members in the education system have been key targets. Students who refuse to renounce Falun Gong are publicly denounced and humiliated, expelled or not given their diplomas, and teachers are demoted, not allowed to teach, or fired from their positions.
The most commonly used charge to target Falun Gong practitioners is accusing them of “using cult organizations to undermine implementation of the law.” As a long term director in the Ministry of Education, Wei Shiqiang actively promotes slanderous propaganda and the systematic suppression of Falun Gong, organizing “anti-cult” activities and arranging ideological and political education campaigns in universities, colleges, as well as primary and secondary schools across the country. These propaganda campaigns whitewash the persecution and incite the general public to hate practitioners.
In 2023, there were 498,300 schools of all levels and types in China, with 291 million students and almost 19 million full-time teachers. Wei’s slanderous propaganda vilifying Falun Gong in the education system may have reached hundreds of millions of teachers and young students.
“Anti-Cult” Education on Campus
In April 2021, under Wei’s direction, the Ministry of Education’s Ideological and Political Work Department, along with the Fourth Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security and the China Anti-Cult Association, launched a large-scale “anti-cult” education campaign in colleges and universities across the country. The campaign has continued annually since.
To publicize and promote the campaign, the Ministry of Education’s Ideological and Political Work Department collaborated with the Fourth Bureau of the Ministry of Public Security to publish guidelines on “How to Identify and Prevent Cults” for college students. On October 20, 2021, a book release ceremony was held at Shandong University to present the Anti-Cult Education on Campus book to its students.
The Ministry of Education’s Ideological and Political Work Department also encouraged college students to log onto the China Anti-Cult Network, China College Students Online, and other websites to download “anti-cult” propaganda posters, display boards, and audio-visual materials. Students were encouraged to watch and promote these materials and participate in online and offline activities targeting Falun Gong.
Suppression of Religious Freedom
To “maintain political security and campus stability in higher education institutions,” the Ministry of Education has carried out propaganda campaigns such as “prevention of religious infiltration” and “counteracting evil cult ideology” on campus. These activities are categorized as ideological and political education, but the goal is to target religious groups, especially Falun Gong.
Persecution of Students and Teachers Who Practice Falun Gong
As a direct result of the long-standing campaign to smear Falun Gong carried out by the Ministry of Education’s Ideological and Political Education Department, school students and teachers who practice Falun Gong have been discriminated against and targeted.
Many students have been suspended from class, forced to attend brainwashing sessions, expelled from school, and/or deprived the opportunity to seek higher education.
Below are select persecution cases in the education system during Wei’s tenure.
A. Examples of Students Being Sentenced
Ms. Wang Meiqi was a senior at Jilin Normal University. On February 27, 2020, her mother, Ms. Zhang Qiaolei, was arrested for putting up informational posters about Falun Gong and later sentenced to 7.5 years in prison. For seeking justice for her mother, Ms. Wang was arrested on December 21, 2020, five days before her graduate school entrance exam. She had to request special permission to take the exams and then return to finish serving her detention term.
Ms. Wang was arrested again in her dorm on April 19, 2021, and later sentenced to three years and six months in prison. The university revoked her eligibility to earn a bachelor’s degree and her graduate school admission.
Ms. Li Hui, 19, was a freshman at Weifang Nursing Vocational College. She was arrested on April 22, 2021, held in Weifang Detention Center, and sentenced to seven months by the Qingzhou City Court on August 12, 2021.
Mr. Liu Junhua, a college student in Jiujiang City, Jiangxi Province, was arrested in August 2022. He held a hunger strike in the detention center to protest the persecution. During his detention, the authorities kept harassing his parents and threatening to sentence him to seven years. His parents, both retired college professors, sought help from Mr. Liu’s university to free him from detention, but to no avail.
Mr. Liu was later sentenced to three years and five months by the Yongxiu County Court. When his parents went to visit him in Jiangxi Province Prison in December 2023, they were initially turned away because their son was in solitary confinement. The couple insisted they be granted a visit, and the guards finally relented after more than eight hours.
The couple were devastated to see two people holding Mr. Liu up by his arms as he slowly walked toward them. He was emaciated and his hands kept shaking. He said that he had been put in solitary confinement for not renouncing Falun Gong.
B. Examples of Students Being Detained
Mr. Zhong Yiming of Dalian City, Liaoning Province, was a freshman at Shanghai Jiao Tong University. He was arrested between late June and early July 2019 after being recorded by surveillance cameras distributing Falun Gong informational materials.
The university reported him to the Shanghai police, who ordered him to reveal where he had learned Falun Gong and to write a “regret statement” to give up his belief.
When Mr. Zhong refused to comply, the police threatened to terminate his college studies and took him to a detention center on July 5.
Ms. Wang Yuanyuan was a sophomore at Hubei University of Arts and Sciences. She was reported by her teacher for talking about Falun Gong on March 29, 2019, and called to the guidance counselor’s office twice for questioning. On March 30, the university reported her to the police for “violating school rules” by trying to promote Falun Gong on campus. She was taken to the police station for interrogation the next day and then admitted to a local detention center.
Mr. Chen Jingyu, a student at Anshun College in Guizhou Province, was arrested on campus on July 31, 2022. The police interrogated him overnight and then released him. They called his family on February 16, 2023, ordering him to report to them on February 20. To avoid being persecuted, Mr. Chen was forced to live away from home.
C. Examples of Students Being Expelled or Forced to Drop Out
Ms. Wan Chunxiao was a freshman at Nanjing University of Posts and Telecommunications in Jiangsu Province. A roomate reported her for doing the Falun Gong exercises in her dorm on May 1, 2019. When the school counselor couldn’t persuade her to renounce Falun Gong, he contacted the school’s Security Department. Because Ms. Wan refused to give up her faith, she was expelled from the university on July 4, 2019.
Ms. An Wen was a graduate student at Shihezi University in Urumqi, Xinjiang. She was arrested at the Urumqi Railway Station on October 2, 2018, when she was about to board a train. She was taken to the Shihezi City Public Security Bureau Detention Center and detained for 15 days. After the detention term expired, she was expelled from school and deported to her hometown.
D. Examples of Students Being Suspended from School or Not Allowed to Pursue Higher Education
A 17-year-old student in Yangjialou School in Tianjin was suspended from school for two months in 2021, after his classmates reported him for discussing Falun Gong and distributing Falun Gong materials at school.
Mr. Chi Pengfei of Deyang City, Sichuan Province, was harassed by the police in March 2018 during the annual meeting of the CCP. When the police couldn’t find him, they went to see his son, Chi Xiang, at his high school on March 6 and asked him where his father was. The young man was traumatized by the harassment and couldn’t go back to school.
The daughter of Mr. Liu Jinsheng of Linfen City, Shanxi Province, was preliminarily accepted by a major university in 2021 after graduating from high school. But because Mr. Liu was on the government blacklist for practicing Falun Gong, she failed the political background check, and the school refused to formally accept her.
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