Li Tao (李涛) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Chengdu, Sichuan Province. On May 24, 2023, Li was seized by the Wenjiang District branch of the Chengdu public-security bureau together with fellow practitioners 段琼英 (Duan Qiongying), 于川程 (Yu Chuancheng), 徐月琴 (Xu Yueqin), 李俊 (Li Jun), and 罗义 (Luo Yi). On July 25, 2024, the Wenjiang District Court sentenced Li to three and a half years in prison, a verdict that was appealed.
The 2023 detention
According to practitioner-community case reports, on May 24, 2023, officers of the Wenjiang District public-security bureau took eight Chengdu Falun Gong practitioners — Duan Qiongying, Li Tao, Xu Yueqin, Li Jun, Luo Yi, 王文涛 (Wang Wentao), and 孙豪/孙浩 (Sun Hao) — into custody. The authorities initially told the families the practitioners had been placed under residential surveillance at a designated location on suspicion of “inciting subversion of state power,” without disclosing where they were being held; the practitioners were in fact held in secret at the Xinjin brainwashing center, where the reports describe interrogation tactics that included deception about others’ confessions and pressure to sign statements renouncing the practice. These accounts are attributed to the practitioner archive and have not been independently verified.
On June 30, 2023, the practitioners were formally arrested and moved to the Pi County Detention Center and the Wenjiang Detention Center. The recorded charge was changed from “inciting subversion of state power” to the criminal provision the authorities described as “using a cult organization to undermine law enforcement.”
Indictment and trial
On March 1, 2024, prosecutor 郑波 (Zheng Bo) of the Wenjiang District Procuratorate indicted Duan Qiongying, Li Tao, and Xu Yueqin; the presiding judge was 胡微微 (Hu Weiwei). The authorities initially treated the eight as a single joint case, then split it into individual cases in May 2024.
On July 25, 2024, the Wenjiang District Court pronounced the sentences: Duan Qiongying, three years and six months; Li Tao, three years and six months; Yu Chuancheng, three years; Xu Yueqin, two years and eight months; Luo Yi, two years and eight months; Li Jun, two years and two months — along with court fines. All of the practitioners appealed the verdicts, as reported in August 2024. Two more practitioners, Sun Hao and Wang Wentao, were tried by the same court on the same day; whether they were sentenced was not reported.
Current status
Li Tao is believed to be currently imprisoned, serving a three-and-a-half-year term expected to run to November 2026. The CHRD political-prisoner database’s date field records the term ending on November 13, 2026, while the case summary gives November 23, 2026; the exact date is therefore uncertain. No release record has been located. The detention location after sentencing is unknown.