Cao Ailan (曹爱兰) was a Falun Gong practitioner from Nanyang City, Henan Province, where she worked as a retired employee of the Nanyang Oilfield. According to Minghui reporting, she was sentenced three times to a total of sixteen years’ imprisonment and died on May 20, 2026, months after release on medical parole.
Minghui reported that Cao was first arrested on July 20, 1999 and detained for eight days. She was taken into custody again on February 22, 2001 and held in a brainwashing center for 99 days. Shortly after her release on May 31, 2001, she was arrested again for distributing Falun Gong materials and received a five-year prison sentence. She was released in 2005. On April 28, 2008 she was arrested again and later received a three-year sentence in October 2008; Minghui reported her release on April 28, 2011.
In late August 2019, Cao was among more than 160 practitioners reportedly arrested in the Nanyang region. After roughly a year and a half in detention, she was sentenced in March 2021 to eight years in prison and fined 30,000 yuan. Minghui reported that she was held in the Henan Province Women’s Prison.
According to Minghui, Cao was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2025 while serving the sentence, underwent a mastectomy and chemotherapy in a prison hospital, and was later released on medical parole because of her declining health. She died on May 20, 2026. These medical, detention, and death details come from Minghui reporting and have not been independently verified.
Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 roster, dated August 31, 2026, lists Cao Ailan among reported current-custody cases. That entry is stale relative to the May 20, 2026 death reported by Minghui and is not treated here as evidence that she remained in custody after that date.
Related reading: Cao Ailan — Media Profile & Archive