State Department Condemns Russia for Repression of Falun Gong
'The United States condemns the Russian government's actions targeting and repressing members of religious minorities, including Falun Gong practitioners,' a State Department spokesperson told The Epoch Times.
'We urge Russia to respect the right of all to exercise the freedom of religion or belief. All religious minorities should be able to enjoy freedom of religion and assembly without interference.'
A Moscow court a day earlier sentenced 47-year-old Natalya Minenkova to four years in prison for her role in a local Falun Gong organization, which had been declared 'undesirable' under a controversial 2015 law that critics say has allowed for politically motivated prosecutions targeting international nonprofits.
Earlier in the week, Russian authorities in Siberia raided the home of another Falun Gong practitioner and confiscated the person's phone and laptop.
The escalation against the group, which has been severely persecuted in China since 1999, comes as Moscow and Beijing have forged closer ties in recent years.
Minenkova, assistant manager for a dental equipment supplier, had been detained since her arrest in May last year, weeks before Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow.
She is one of eight Falun Gong practitioners targeted under the 2015 law. Under the law, Russian prosecutors also labeled seven Falun Gong-related organizations as 'undesirable.' Five of these are based in the United States.
Besides Minenkova, Zhu Yun from Siberia's Tomsk was sentenced to three years in prison on June 27 for his affiliation with one of the seven targeted organizations, the U.S.-based World Organization to Investigate the Persecution of Falun Gong, which investigates forced organ harvesting activities in China.
In November 2024, Oksana Shchetkina from southern Russian city Pyatigorsk, received a two-year prison term over her association with the nonprofit, Friends of Falun Gong.
Three others, who remain in detention, include Mikhail Antonenko and Mikhail Sinitsyn from Krasnodar, who founded their local Falun Dafa Association—which has since disbanded over prosecution fears; and Moscow resident Gennady Pavlovich Buslov.
Two more men were punished for participating in Falun Gong-related activities. Ildar Maksinyaev, a Mordovian villager, was sentenced to 400 hours of compulsory labor, and Denis Shibankov, from northeastern city Yaroslavl, was handed 300 hours, which the appeals court later reduced to 80.
Around the same time as Minenkova's arrest, Moscow police raided several Falun Gong practitioners' homes and publicized the acts on their official Telegram channel. In one video, officers tackled a young man to the ground and knelt on his back. The man was the brother of a Falun Gong practitioner.
'CCP Is Afraid of This'
In court on July 23, Minenkova spoke about how she had benefited from practicing Falun Gong over the past decade. Her stomach issues, sore throat, and chronic tonsillitis, and her relationship with her sister, who she had long quarreled with, improved.
She said she was in court not because she committed any crime, but rather, because the Chinese Communist Party holds a 'lever of control' over Russia and can, 'with the hands of law enforcement agencies and judges,' persecute innocent people far beyond the Chinese territory.
'Today I am in the dock, and my friends are under investigation in different cities, because we are telling the truth about the repression of Falun Gong. And the CCP is afraid of this.'
She ended by saying that she believes in following what's right.
'There is a principle in the universe: good will be rewarded with good, and evil will be punished. It works regardless of whether we believe in it or not.'
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'We stand in solidarity with the Falun Gong community in Canada and around the world, who continue to endure surveillance, harassment, disinformation, and repression simply for exercising their fundamental rights.' At this year's G7 leaders' summit in Canada, world leaders issued a joint statement condemning the rise of transnational repression, saying they are 'deeply concerned' about foreign governments targeting dissidents abroad. They vowed to counter this threat, saying it 'often impacts dissidents, journalists, human rights defenders, religious minorities, and those identified as part of diaspora communities.' The persecution of Falun Gong and its expansion abroad is an example of the need to counter this form of repression, the joint statement from the parliamentarians said. 'The CCP's campaign against Falun Gong clearly exemplifies the very dangers the G7 has called on the world to resist together,' it says. Joint Statement The following is the joint statement signed by 53 Canadian parliamentarians. Condemning the CCP's Escalating Transnational Repression Against Falun Gong We, the undersigned Parliamentarians, stand in solidarity with the Falun Gong community and strongly condemn the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) escalating transnational repression (TNR) and ongoing, 26-year persecution of Falun Gong practitioners. Falun Gong—also known as Falun Dafa—is a peaceful spiritual practice based on the universal values of Truthfulness, Compassion, and Forbearance. Since 1999, the CCP has attempted to eliminate this faith group through systematic and egregious human rights abuses. In 2025, bomb and mass shooting threats were sent to venues hosting Shen Yun—a classical Chinese dance company founded by Falun Gong practitioners—in four Canadian cities, among over 140 such incidents reported globally. Some of these threats have been traced to sources in China. These acts are part of a broader, global CCP-led campaign of sabotage aimed at suppressing Falun Gong and Shen Yun. Over the past 26 years, Falun Gong practitioners in Canada have endured surveillance, harassment, intimidation, assault, disinformation, cyberattacks, and other forms of CCP repression. These actions not only harm the Falun Gong community and disrupt Shen Yun, but also threatens the integrity of Canada's institutions, sovereignty, and core democratic values. In the statement issued on June 17, 2025, the G7 Leaders affirmed their commitment to protect communities and condemned transnational repression as a serious threat to rights and freedoms, national security, and state sovereignty. The CCP's campaign against Falun Gong clearly exemplifies the very dangers the G7 has called on the world to resist together.
