Fan Ruihai is a Falun Gong practitioner from Xingtang County in Hebei Province, reported to have been sentenced to four years in prison in 2024. He is reported to be 58 years old and to have formerly worked as an accountant at the Xingtang County Police Department.
On October 9, 2022, Fan was arrested for putting up posters about Falun Gong, according to reporting by Minghui. He was interrogated for an hour, and his home was ransacked the next day; his Falun Gong books and computer were confiscated. After a seven-day quarantine at the Longzhou Police Station, he was transferred to the Xingtang County Detention Center on October 18.
On June 17, 2024, he was sentenced to four years in prison. Minghui confirmed that he was admitted to Luquan Prison in Shijiazhuang, the provincial capital, to serve his sentence. Details of his indictment, trial, and sentencing have not been reported.
Fan had previously been detained multiple times for practicing Falun Gong. In September 1999, two months after the persecution of Falun Gong began, he went to Beijing to appeal for the right to practice; he was arrested, held at the Hebei Province Liaison Office in Beijing, and then given 15 days in the Xinle City Lockup. His employer demoted him in December 1999 and reassigned him to Shangyanzhuang Town for a year under surveillance. He was arrested again in May 2000 and given 15 days of criminal detention, during which he says he was shackled and beaten; the detention was extended by 15 days. In 2001 he was twice taken to the Hebei Province Legal Education Center and held for a total of three months. In April 2002 he was among practitioners seized by the Xingtang County “610 Office” and taken to a Shijiazhuang labor camp, and in November 2002 he was detained for nearly two months at the Xingtang County Party School. In November 2004 he was arrested again after going to the county government to appeal, and in August 2005 the Xingtang County Court sentenced him to four years in prison.
Fan took up Falun Gong in March 1998. He reported that ailments including depression, a stomach condition, and shortness of breath disappeared after he began practicing. The years of persecution took a toll on his family: his wife divorced him, and his father passed away, according to Minghui.
Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 (August 31, 2026) lists Fan Ruihai among reported current-custody political prisoners and prisoners of conscience. His current status has not been independently verified beyond this reported listing.
*Note: This account is drawn from reporting by Minghui, an advocacy publication affiliated with Falun Gong practitioners; official court or detention records were not located. His Chinese name characters have not been independently verified, and the specific criminal charge and court of conviction are unknown.*