EXCLUSIVE: Wang Chunyan held a photograph toward the camera, her hands trembling slightly as she pointed to each of the 21 smiling faces: a husband and wife, a university lecturer, a young engineer, friends she met in prison.

Some died in detention, she said. Others after years of abuse. Others disappeared into China’s vast security system and never returned the same. «More than 25 of my friends have died in this persecution. I only have photos of 21 of them,» Chunyan said, her voice breaking.

For more than two decades, the 70-year-old Falun Gong practitioner said, the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) systematically dismantled her life, stripping away the business she had built, the home she once shared with her family and, eventually, seven years of her life in prison.

But the hardest thing for her, is that she believes it took her husband too. «My beloved husband died due to the persecution,» Chunyan claimed during an exclusive interview with Fox News Digital.

REPORT DETAILS RISING PRESSURE ON UNDERGROUND CATHOLICS AS CHINA DENIES CRACKDOWN

Her account comes as President Donald Trump prepares to travel to China next week for meetings with Chinese leader Xi Jinping, with trade, security and regional tensions expected to dominate the agenda. Yet behind the geopolitical rivalry lies another conflict: Beijing’s decades-long campaign against religious and spiritual groups the Communist Party views as threats to its authority.

Former U.S. Ambassador-at-Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback believes Wang’s story reflects a much broader struggle unfolding inside China. «Either the world changes China or China will change the world,» Brownback told Fox News Digital.

Brownback recently chronicled Chunyan’s story and the experiences of other survivors in his book China’s War on Faith, arguing that personal testimony can often reveal the reality of persecution more powerfully than statistics alone. «Stories are more powerful than data,» he said.

Photograph shown by Falun Gong practitioner Wang Chunyan during a Zoom interview with Fox News Digital depict friends and fellow practitioners she says were persecuted during the Chinese Communist Party’s crackdown on the spiritual movement. (Fox News Digital)

The book examines what Brownback describes as an increasingly sophisticated system of surveillance and repression targeting Christians, Uyghur Muslims, Tibetan Buddhists and Falun Gong practitioners. He argues the Chinese Communist Party views independent faith communities as a direct threat to its authority.

«They fear religious freedom more than anything else. More than our aircraft carriers, more than our nuclear weapons, more than anything else because they think it is the biggest threat to the regime.»

CRUZ LEADS SENATE PUSH TO HOLD CHINA ACCOUNTABLE FOR BEIJING CHURCH CRACKDOWN

Protesters chant slogans and hold posters of victims during a demonstration against China’s crackdown on Uyghurs in front of the Chinese consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Nov. 30, 2022. (Khalil Hamra/AP)

Chunyan story started in the late 1990s, when she suffered from severe insomnia, sometimes sleeping only two or three hours a night. Then her older sister introduced her to Falun Gong, also known as Falun Dafa, a spiritual practice ,she says, is centered on meditation exercises and teachings rooted in «truthfulness, compassion and tolerance.»

The movement spread rapidly across China during the 1990s, attracting tens of millions of followers before Beijing banned it in 1999, portraying it as a threat to Communist Party control.

Chunyan says Falun Gong helped improve her «physical condition.» She said, «My business was booming. My family was happy. My life was perfect.»

Chunyan became convinced the practice had saved her life. She owned a successful company selling chemical production equipment and had become wealthy by Chinese standards, but after the crackdown began she felt compelled to publicly defend Falun Gong against what she believed were government lies.

She bought a printing press and began distributing leaflets. Soon afterward, she said, surveillance followed everywhere.

«The buildings where I worked were under constant surveillance,» Chunyan recalled. «I left to escape and was afraid to come home.»

GRAHAM FAMILY RESPONDS TO GLOBAL CRACKDOWN ON CHRISTIANS WITH $1.3M DEFENSE FUND AND URGENT CALL TO ACTION

A pro-democracy activist holds placards with a picture of Chinese citizen journalist Zhang Zhan outside the Chinese central government’s liaison office in Hong Kong on Dec. 28, 2020. Zhang was released from prison after serving four years for charges related to reporting on the COVID-19 outbreak in Wuhan, according to a video statement she released Tuesday, May 21, 2024. (Kin Cheung/AP)

For years, she lived in hiding, using prepaid calling cards and public telephones to secretly arrange meetings with her husband, Yu Yefu, in restaurants, coffee shops and hotels across the city. The two tried, briefly, to maintain some sense of normalcy.

Yu himself never practiced Falun Gong, but police repeatedly pressured him to reveal where his wife was hiding. He never did. Then, in 2002, Wang stopped hearing from him.

When she finally returned home, she found him unconscious. Doctors could not save him. «He protected me,» she said in tears.

He was 49 years old when he died. Their daughter was still in college.

The devastation spread through the family afterward, Chunyan said. Her mother-in-law stopped eating and later became paralyzed. Her father-in-law died from grief. Her sisters were also imprisoned and tortured.

Then came Chunyan’s own imprisonment.

WATCHDOG HIGHLIGHTS NATIONS WHERE CHRISTIANS FACE PERSECUTION AROUND THE GLOBE

The flag of China is flown behind a pair of surveillance cameras outside the Central Government Offices in Hong Kong, China, on Tuesday, July 7, 2020. Hong Kong leader Carrie Lam defended national security legislation imposed on the city by China last week, hours after her government asserted broad new police powers, including warrant-less searches, online surveillance and property seizures.  (Roy Liu/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

She described years of forced labor, sleep deprivation and physical abuse. At one point, she said, the torture became so severe that she fainted three times in a single day.

One memory still haunts her most. Shortly before her release from prison, Wang said authorities conducted unexplained blood tests and medical examinations. At the time, fellow inmates told her the government was simply checking on Falun Gong prisoners before release. Only later, after learning about allegations of forced organ harvesting involving detained Falun Gong practitioners, did she begin to fear why the testing may have happened. «I was horrified,» Chunyan said.

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Falun Gong practitioner Wang Chunyan recounting the death of her husband, whom she says was persecuted by Chinese authorities for refusing to reveal her whereabouts. (Fox News)

Today, Chunyan lives in the United States, having left China in 2013 and eventually making her way through Thailand before arriving in America in 2015.

Yet decades later, the losses remain immediate to her.

«There are millions of families in China like ours,» Chunyan wants the world to know, «Persecuted by the CCP.»

In a statement to Fox News Digital, Chinese Embassy spokesperson Liu Pengyu rejected the allegations and defended Beijing’s actions against Falun Gong. «The aforementioned remarks are nothing but malicious fabrications and sensational lies,» Liu said. «Falun Gong is a cult organization that is anti-humanity, anti-science and anti-society. It is hostile toward religion, endangers the public, and serves as a malignant tumor within society.» Liu argued that «the Chinese government outlawed the Falun Gong cult in accordance with the law, thereby safeguarding the fundamental human rights and freedoms of the vast majority of the Chinese people.» 

La ausencia de pelo en los peces es uno de los rasgos que más claramente los distingue de otros vertebrados, como los mamíferos. Este hecho, que suele llamar la atención de quienes estudian el mundo animal, está directamente relacionado con las exigencias de la vida acuática y las soluciones evolutivas que han adoptado estos animales para prosperar bajo el agua.

Como explica la revista de divulgación científica National Geographic, las diferencias estructurales y biológicas entre los peces y otros grupos vertebrados han marcado el rumbo de su evolución, haciendo innecesaria la presencia de pelo para su supervivencia.

La falta de pelo en los peces obedece a motivos evolutivos y funcionales. Al vivir en el agua, estos animales no necesitan la protección térmica que proporciona el pelo a los mamíferos terrestres.

El pelo, compuesto por queratina, podría incluso dificultar el desplazamiento eficiente en el agua al aumentar la fricción.

Por este motivo, los peces han desarrollado mecanismos alternativos de protección, adaptándose a su entorno acuático de manera singular. Según National Geographic, la evolución favoreció la desaparición del pelo en los peces y promovió otras estructuras más adecuadas para la vida en el medio acuático.

El diseño anatómico de los peces responde a la necesidad de reducir la resistencia al agua y aumentar su capacidad de movimiento. Esta adaptación incluye la ausencia de estructuras pilosas, lo que les permite moverse con mayor eficiencia y aprovechar mejor los recursos de su entorno.

La piel de los peces es una barrera versátil que cumple varias funciones esenciales para su supervivencia. Está formada por una epidermis y una dermis, pero carece de folículos pilosos.

Esta piel no solo protege al animal de agresiones externas y del roce con el entorno, sino que también participa activamente en procesos fisiológicos. Entre sus funciones se encuentra la regulación de intercambios osmóticos, lo que ayuda a mantener el equilibrio de agua y sales en el organismo.

Además, la piel de los peces segrega un mucus especial que actúa como defensa frente a parásitos y microorganismos. Este mucus aporta una capa resbaladiza que facilita el desplazamiento en el agua y reduce el riesgo de infecciones.

Una de las diferencias clave entre los peces y otros vertebrados radica en la estructura y funciones de la piel. Mientras que los mamíferos y aves poseen folículos pilosos o plumas, los peces presentan una piel adaptada para la vida acuática, sin pelo ni estructuras similares.

En los mamíferos, el pelo actúa como una herramienta clave para conservar el calor corporal y percibir estímulos del entorno. En cambio, los peces desarrollaron una estrategia diferente: su piel cumple funciones de protección física y regulación fisiológica sin necesidad de una cobertura pilosa.

La piel de los peces se caracteriza por su capacidad de secretar mucus y por la presencia de escamas, que contribuyen a la protección y el movimiento. Estos elementos sustituyen las funciones que el pelo cumple en otros animales, demostrando la diversidad de estrategias evolutivas entre los vertebrados.

Las escamas son una de las principales defensas de los peces. Estas estructuras rígidas y superpuestas cubren la mayor parte del cuerpo, protegiendo al animal de lesiones, depredadores y agentes patógenos.

El mucus que recubre las escamas refuerza esta protección, formando una barrera adicional contra infecciones y facilitando el desplazamiento en el agua.

La combinación de escamas y mucus permite a los peces desplazarse por el agua con menor fricción y mayor eficiencia al nadar. Pero su función va mucho más allá de la movilidad: este recubrimiento natural también contiene compuestos antimicrobianos que ayudan a frenar infecciones y proteger al organismo frente a enfermedades.

Aunque la mayoría de los peces carecen de pelo, existen algunas excepciones notables en cuanto a la cobertura de su piel. Algunas especies presentan variaciones en la cantidad y tipo de escamas, e incluso hay peces que carecen completamente de escamas y dependen exclusivamente del mucus para su protección. Sin embargo, ningún pez desarrolla estructuras pilosas equivalentes al pelo de los mamíferos.

Estos casos especiales demuestran la flexibilidad y diversidad de las adaptaciones evolutivas dentro del grupo, siempre orientadas a optimizar la supervivencia en el entorno acuático. Todas estas particularidades han sido documentadas en el análisis de la revista de divulgación científica National Geographic sobre la biología y evolución de los peces.

Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson stood out from her colleagues this week when she broke with them to rail against the high court’s decision to fast-track its landmark order dismantling a key provision in the Voting Rights Act. 

But Jackson’s solo dissent was far from the first time the Biden-appointed justice has been on an island, as she has routinely blasted the court for not asserting more judicial authority over President Donald Trump’s executive actions and drawn rebukes from her colleagues for taking what they have viewed as flawed positions.

Ideological divides over high-profile cases have been common. The trio of liberals has remained unified against the Trump administration by opposing decisions, including on the interim docket, to curb universal injunctions, allow states to ban transgender medical treatments for minors, permit Trump to fire members of independent agencies, authorize the government to cancel immigrants’ temporary protected status and more.

But even in some of those cases, Jackson goes on solo diatribes, highlighting a deeper internal divide within the liberal bloc.

WHY JUSTICE JACKSON IS A FISH OUT OF WATER ON THE SUPREME COURT

Below are five recent times Jackson gave lone opinions.

1. Louisiana redistricting judgment

The Supreme Court struck down Louisiana’s map last month, finding 6-3 it contained an unconstitutional racial gerrymander.

Upon request, the Supreme Court also decided 8-1 to fast-track the landmark decision — handing it down immediately rather than in roughly a month like it usually does — allowing several red states to more quickly attempt to implement new congressional lines after the high court weakened Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act by limiting the role race may play in congressional redistricting.

Jackson, the bench’s most junior justice, broke with her eight colleagues in that decision, saying the court improperly «[dove] into the fray» of active elections by handing its judgment down immediately.

«Not content to have decided the law, it now takes steps to influence its implementation,» Jackson wrote.

LATEST SCOTUS LEAK A GIFT TO LIBERALS ‘SALIVATING’ OVER CONTROL OF HIGH COURT NARRATIVE: EXPERTS

Justice Samuel Alito, joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch, wrote a scathing concurrence for the sole purpose of ripping apart Jackson’s dissent, saying her claims were «groundless and utterly irresponsible.»

2. Universal injunctions

The Supreme Court is still weighing Trump’s signature plan to severely limit birthright citizenship, but it first entertained the subject last year by addressing how lower courts across the country uniformly issued nationwide injunctions against the plan. The high court decided 6-3 to ban such injunctions but left room for judges and plaintiffs to deploy other methods when seeking widespread relief.

Jackson gave a rogue, separate dissent in the case, drawing eyebrow-raising jabs from Justice Amy Coney Barrett.

Justice Amy Coney Barrett delivered remarks at the Seventh Circuit Judicial Conference at the Swissotel hotel in Chicago, Illinois, on Aug. 18, 2025. (Getty Images)

«We will not dwell on Justice Jackson’s argument, which is at odds with more than two centuries’ worth of precedent, not to mention the Constitution itself,» Barrett wrote in the court’s opinion in 2025. «We observe only this: Justice Jackson decries an imperial Executive while embracing an imperial Judiciary.»

Jackson wrote that nationwide injunctions should be permissible because the courts should not allow the president to «violate the Constitution.» 

Barrett disagreed.

«She offers a vision of the judicial role that would make even the most ardent defender of judicial supremacy blush,» Barrett wrote.

Justices of the US Supreme Court pose for their official photo at the Supreme Court in Washington, DC on October 7, 2022. (OLIVIER DOULIERY/AFP via Getty Images)

3. National Institutes of Health grants

The high court fractured last August in dual 5–4 decisions that allowed the National Institutes of Health to cancel nearly $800 million in research grants.

Jackson, in one of her most memorable one-person dissents, appeared to boil over with frustration, observing that the majority «bends over backward to accommodate» the Trump administration.

«This is Calvinball jurisprudence with a twist. Calvinball has only one rule: There are no fixed rules,» Jackson wrote. «We seem to have two: that one, and this Administration always wins.»

Some of the canceled grants were geared toward research on diversity, equity and inclusion; COVID-19; and gender identity. Jackson argued the grants went further and that «life-saving biomedical research» was at stake.

4. Colorado conversion therapy case

When the Supreme Court sided 8-1 with a Christian counselor who challenged Colorado’s ban on counseling minors about sexual orientation and gender identity — which the state barred as conversion therapy — Jackson was the lone dissenter, warning that «to be completely frank, no one knows what will happen now.»

Jackson said the key free speech decision defied «treatment standards» and bucked the medical profession, leading an unlikely colleague, Justice Elena Kagan, to openly reject her dissent.

Kagan, an Obama appointee, said Jackson’s view «rests on reimagining—and in that way collapsing—the well-settled distinction between viewpoint-based and other content-based speech restrictions.»

5. Reasonable suspicion for police

In a lower profile case about police stops, Jackson conspicuously found in April that the high court overstepped its authority by improperly meddling in a lower court’s assessment of how Washington, D.C., police decided to stop a man in a suspicious vehicle.

The Supreme Court reversed the decision by the lower court, saying it should have weighed the «totality of the circumstances» surrounding the vehicle and approved of an officer’s decision to briefly detain the man.

The decision was 7-2, but Justice Sonia Sotomayor opposed the ruling while also opting against joining Jackson’s dissent. Jackson accused the majority of trying to «wordsmith» and interfere with a typically routine evaluation of a police stop.

Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Ketanji Brown Jackson are pictured together. (Getty Images)

«I cannot fathom why that kind of factbound determination warranted correction by this Court,» Jackson wrote.

Jonathan Turley, George Washington University law professor and Fox News contributor, said in an op-ed this month that Jackson has «quickly developed a radical and chilling jurisprudence.»

Despite establishing herself as an outlier, Jackson also has a swathe of supporters from civil rights groups to celebrities. She has been showered with praise on «The View,» nominated for a Grammy for her audiobook and drawn encouragement from Democratic lawmakers.

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Jackson said during her appearance this year on «The View» that «criticism is part of the job.»

«Dissents are an opportunity for the justices who disagree with the majority to really describe their view of the law but also their concerns,» Jackson said, adding that «you hope that your view will prevail in the long run.»

Fox News Digital reached out to the Supreme Court’s press office for comment.