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Jailed In China For Practicing Falun Gong, This Woman And Her Elderly Mother Found Refuge In Malaysia
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Li (not her real name), a Falun Gong practitioner from northeastern China, arrived in Malaysia in 2024 on a tourist visa.
She has not left since.
Neither has her mother, who is in her 70s.
In 2016, both women were sentenced by a Chinese court — Li to three years and six months, her mother to three years.
Their offence: practising Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline rooted in meditation and the principles of truthfulness, compassion and forbearance.
Her mother was over 70 at the time of sentencing.
Under Chinese law, elderly detainees are eligible for medical parole or supervised release.
She served the full term.
“She is an old woman,” Li said in an interview with TRP.
The law says she should not have been inside. They put her in anyway.
A Ban, a System, and a Decision to Leave
Falun Gong has been banned in China since 1999, when the Chinese Communist Party declared it a threat to social stability.
Since then, human rights organisations including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented widespread arrests, forced labour, torture and — in the most severe allegations — the harvesting of organs from imprisoned practitioners.
Li did not use the word “torture.”
She used the phrase fei ren dao de dai yu — treatment that is not human.
After their release, the harassment did not stop.
Police visited the family home on sensitive dates — the anniversaries of the 1999 crackdown, national holidays, politically charged weeks.
Officers asked where Li had been.
They asked what she had been doing; they already knew the answer.
“They have a system,” Li said.
If someone reports you as a Falun Gong practitioner, the person who reports you gets a reward.
She and her mother decided to leave.
They Could Afford Malaysia
They chose Malaysia for reasons that had nothing to do with preference — it requires no visa for Chinese nationals, flights from China are direct and affordable, a Falun Gong community is already established there, and Malaysia, Li noted, does not have an extradition treaty with China.
Flights from China are direct and affordable, and there is a Falun Gong community already established here.
Li also noted that Malaysia has no extradition treaty with China.
The better place would be Europe or America. But we could only afford Malaysia.
In Kuala Lumpur, Li has registered with the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR).
She has completed one interview; she is waiting.
She does not use WeChat — China’s dominant messaging platform, which researchers and digital rights groups say is subject to pervasive surveillance by Chinese authorities, with users in China arrested for content shared in private group chats — and communicates with her siblings instead through FaceTime on an iPhone.
Even then, she does not say the words; not on a call, not in a message, not in writing.
WeChat monitors everything. We cannot take the risk.
Her siblings, who do not practice Falun Gong, were questioned by police in the early years.
The visits have since stopped; Li is not certain why.
Falun Gong in Malaysia — A Tolerance That Has Held, Under Pressure
On weekends, Li goes to a public park in Kuala Lumpur.
She does her exercises, hands out flyers and tells people, if they ask, what Falun Gong is.
Nobody arrests her; Malaysia has never banned Falun Gong. From an international human-rights perspective, this is commendable and fortunate.
China has spent 27 years pressuring governments across Southeast Asia to suppress the practice entirely.
Malaysia — despite Beijing being its largest trading partner — has not obliged.
Practitioners meditate freely in public parks.
They hold candlelight vigils outside the Chinese Consulate on Jalan Ampang; they gather at Bukit Bintang.
They mark the anniversaries of China’s 1999 crackdown in public squares across Kuala Lumpur, year after year, with the tacit approval of the relevant authorities.
But the space has not always been comfortable.
A Country That Has Mostly Said Yes
In April 2025, authorities detained 76 practitioners during a private gathering two days before China’s state visit — a moment of acute diplomatic sensitivity.
They were released.
In August 2025, Chinese nationals identifying themselves as connected to a Chinese police station disrupted a Falun Gong display at Tugu Negara, seizing banners on Malaysian soil.
The Ministry of Home Affairs has at times restricted Falun Gong publications, citing diplomatic considerations, but it has not restricted the practice itself.
For Li and her mother — who served prison time in China simply for meditating — the distinction is not abstract.
China has spent 25 years saying no; Malaysia has mostly said yes — just not always, and not when it is politically inconvenient.
For a 70-year-old woman who was once told she could not even do her exercises in her own country, mostly is enough.
Li was asked whether she would ever return to China; she did not pause.
If I go back, I will be on their list. I have always been on their list. If I return to China, I will face further persecution from the CCP: imprisonment, forced brainwashing, excessive forced labor, physical punishment if I refuse to renounce my beliefs, sleep deprivation, denial of washing and toilet access, and, if my blood type is a match, the risk of forced organ harvesting.
Her mother, now in her mid-70s, does her exercises in the same park.
In Malaysia, for now, nobody arrests her, and their gratitude to the Creator, the Malaysian government, and the UNHCR for allowing them to remain in Malaysia have been their daily prayer so far.
@cikgualwie Pada pagi 15 Ogos 2025, di Tugu Negara Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, papan pameran maklumat Falun Gong telah dirampas oleh sekumpulan individu (sekitar sepuluh orang) yang disyaki bertindak atas arahan Parti Komunis China (PKC), lalu dimasukkan ke dalam sebuah kereta dan dibawa pergi. Para pengamal Falun Gong tempatan telah pun membuat laporan polis.Ini merupakan kali pertama penindasan terbuka oleh PKC merentas sempadan berlaku secara langsung di Malaysia! Jika tidak dibendung, pada masa hadapan ejen PKC mungkin akan sewenang-wenangnya mengambil tindakan terhadap individu anti-Komunis atau pelarian dari China di Malaysia. #tiktokviral #fypage #KerajaanMadaniGagal #MalaysiaAmanTanpaDAP #SelamatkanNegaraMalaysia
♬ pAiN sound – user25691470957
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Jailed In China For Practicing Falun Gong, This Woman And Her Elderly Mother Found Refuge In Malaysia
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