Zhao Xiuli (赵秀丽) — Person Profile
Zhao Xiuli (赵秀丽), a 57-year-old tailor from Shenyang City, Liaoning Province, is a Falun Gong practitioner. On April 16, 2024, it was reported that she had been sentenced to four and a half years in prison following her October 2022 arrest; the sentencing court and the precise sentencing date are not stated in the located sources. The Rights Defense Network’s (维权网) monthly political-prisoners report (Issue 131, August 31, 2026) lists her in its 4-year-6-month sentence band, confirming she remains in custody serving her term as of that date.
The case
On October 17, 2022, officers from the Chengdonghu Police Station seized Zhao at her tailor shop. Five officers had searched her home earlier that day, confiscating her Falun Gong books, computer, and printer. Because local detention centers were requiring a 14-day quarantine at the time, police kept her at the police station for two weeks — taking her for a COVID-19 test each morning — while her husband brought her food daily; she went on hunger strike to protest the detention. She was transferred to a local detention center on October 31, 2022.
On April 16, 2024, Minghui reported that the 57-year-old Shenyang tailor had been sentenced to 4.5 years; the report notes that “the details of Ms. Zhao’s subsequent indictment, trial, and sentencing remain to be investigated,” and that police surveillance-camera evidence was used in the case.
Earlier targeting
Zhao took up Falun Gong in April 1996. She was first arrested on December 31, 2000, and given two years of forced labor, served at the Shenxin and Longshan forced labor camps. In 2015 she filed a criminal complaint against former Communist Party leader Jiang Zemin; she was arrested on August 11, 2016, tried by the Heping District Court on January 23, 2018, and sentenced to two years on July 19, 2018, being released from the Shenyang City Detention Center three weeks later.
Status and evidentiary limits
As of August 31, 2026, the Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 report lists Zhao Xiuli in its 4-year-6-month sentence band with an in-custody classification. No release date has been stated in any public source; none is given here. The case facts are attributed to Minghui’s reporting (2022–2024), a single-perspective community outlet; the in-custody listing is per the Issue 131 monthly report. The precise sentencing date and the sentencing court are not stated in any located source; no PRC official source on the case was found. An August 2018 sentencing table’s term figure for her 2018 case conflicts with Minghui’s detailed account of a two-year sentence on July 19, 2018; Minghui’s detailed account is treated as the stronger record. Do not merge her with the “Zhao Xiuli” items from Shijiazhuang, Hebei, reported in 2001 — a different person in a different place and year.
Media Profile & Archive: Zhao Xiuli (赵秀丽) — Media Profile & Archive