5 days ago
State Department Condemns Russia for Repression of Falun Gong
WASHINGTON—The State Department on Thursday condemned Russian authorities' escalating repression against Falun Gong after a Moscow court sentenced a practitioner of the faith group to four years in prison.
'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.'
