State Department Condemns Russia for Repression of Falun Gong

Russia has escalated its repression of the group as Moscow has forged closer ties with Beijing in recent years.

A sign outside the US State Department in Washington on July 11, 2025. Saule Loeb/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON—The State Department on July 24 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.

‘Bargain With the Devil’

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, an assistant manager for a dental equipment supplier, had been detained since her arrest in May 2024, weeks before Chinese regime leader Xi Jinping visited Moscow.

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) speaks during a hearing about “Corporate Complicity: Subsidizing the PRC’s Human Rights Violations” in Washington on July 11, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), who co-chairs the Congressional–Executive Commission on China, said Russian President Vladimir Putin and Xi have “entered into a marriage of convenience.”

“Russia is doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party, as evidenced by the repression directed at a peaceful Falun Gong practitioner,” Smith told The Epoch Times.

“Putin has made a bargain with the devil, to the detriment of the people of Russia—and to an innocent Russian, Natalya Minenkova.”

He believes that, in time, “Russia will find this marriage of convenience an unhappy one.”

Asif Mahmood, vice chair of the federal panel United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, told The Epoch Times that the sentencing of Minenkova and other Falun Gong practitioners is “yet another example of its expansive, completely baseless crackdown on individuals who ostensibly don’t align with Russia’s domestic or foreign policy objectives.”

He said the United States should redesignate Russia “as a country of particular concern and use its powerful voice to highlight the repression of religious groups in Russia, including Falun Gong practitioners.”

Eight People Targeted

Minenkova is one of eight Falun Gong practitioners who have been targeted under the 2015 law. Under the law, Russia also labels seven Falun Gong-related organizations as “undesirable.” Five of these are based in the United States.

Besides Minenkova, Zhu Yun from Tomsk, Siberia, 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 the city of Pyatigorsk in southern Russian received a two-year prison term over her association with the nonprofit Friends of Falun Gong.

Natalya Minenkova does Falun Gong meditation in Dendropark in Moscow, Russia, on July 5, 2022. The Epoch Times

Three others, who remain in detention, include Mikhail Antonenko and Mikhail Sinitsyn from Krasnodar, who founded their local Falun Dafa Association—which has since been disbanded over prosecution fears—and Gennady Pavlovich Buslov from Moscow.

Two more men were punished in Russia for participating in Falun Gong-related activities. Ildar Maksinyaev, a Mordovian villager, was sentenced to 400 hours of compulsory labor, and Denis Shibankov, from the northeastern city of Yaroslavl, was handed 300 hours, which an 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 the agency’s 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, with whom she had long quarreled, improved.

She said she was in court not because she committed any crime, but rather because the Chinese regime holds a “lever of control” over Russia and can, “with the hands of law enforcement agencies and judges,” persecute innocent people far beyond China’s borders.

Police detain a Falun Gong practitioner as a crowd gathers around in Tiananmen Square in Beijing on Oct. 1, 2000. Chien-Min Chung/AP Photo

“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 said.

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,” she said.