(Minghui.org) A 62-year-old woman in Foshan City, Guangdong Province is experiencing high blood pressure while detained for her faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since 1999.
Ms. Cao Meizhen was arrested by officers from Lanshi Police Station at around 11 p.m. on October 3, 2026. The police failed to notify her family of her arrest.
When Ms. Cao’s family went to the police station to inquire about her whereabouts the next day, they learned that she had been criminally detained at the Chancheng District Detention Center. She was forbidden from contacting her family.
Ms. Cao developed severe hypertension during detention and was taken to the Foshan Third Hospital for treatment. Her lawyer submitted an application to the Chancheng District Police Department for her to be released on bail on October 8, 2026. It’s unclear whether the police have responded.
Ms. Cao was born in 1964 and had worked as a kindergarten teacher at the former Foshan Institute of Science and Technology, which is now called Foshan University. She suffered from many chronic illnesses before she practiced Falun Gong, including chronic atrophic gastritis, nerve weakness, cholecystitis, mastitis, and chronic throat inflammation.
She had been tormented by these chronic conditions for more than a decade, and had been on medication for a long time, often having to take multiple medications at once, yet her symptoms continued and she became increasingly thinner. Her nerve issues caused all of her limbs to feel weak, and she was mentally exhausted. She had lost confidence at work and in her daily life, and had become prone to outbursts of anger.
Physically and mentally exhausted, Ms. Cao started practicing Falun Gong in September 1997, after a classmate recommended it to her. The chronic conditions that had plagued her for years disappeared before she realized it, and she was finally healthy.
Ms. Cao was arrested in June 2000, for planing to go to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong. She was detained in the Foshan City Detention Center for one month, where she was forced to sleep on a damp concrete floor, and each day she was subjected to intensive forced labor, including scrubbing plastic products and assembling strings of decorative lights without any protective gear. Her hands became worn raw and were covered in blisters. The experience caused her tremendous physical and mental suffering.
Ms. Cao was arrested again in September 2002, and taken to a brainwashing center for three months. She was forced to watch many videos each day that slandered Falun Gong. Because she refused to “transform,” she was transferred from the brainwashing center to the Sanshui Forced Labor Camp for a two-year term on December 16, 2002.
After Ms. Cao was released from the labor camp in May 2004, she was forced to resign from her position as a kindergarten teacher at the Foshan Institute of Science and Technology.
Ms. Cao started working at the Zhejiang Province Institute of Science and Technology in Hangzhou City in September 2010. Two months later, on November 16, 2010, she was arrested at work and subsequently sentenced to four years and six months in prison.
While serving time in the Zhejiang Province Women’s Prison, she was subjected to brainwashing and grueling physical labor. Her systolic blood pressure soared to 180 mmHg, and she suffered from insomnia every night. Despite her poor physical condition, the prison authorities continued increasing her labor quotas, causing severe damage to her health.