Classification: Falun Gong practitioner from Dongning, Heilongjiang; arrested September 2023; sentenced to three years and six months in December 2023 (upheld on appeal April 2024); reported serving the term in the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison with release due March 18, 2027.
Xiao Hua (肖华) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Dahe Township, Dongning City, in Mudanjiang, Heilongjiang Province. Born in 1960, she had been detained multiple times over two decades for her practice before her most recent case: in 2000 she was held 72 days and fined 4,000 yuan; in 2012 she was sentenced to three years by the Dongning court and served the term in the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison, according to the Minghui victim library’s case file.
On the morning of September 19, 2023, Xiao Hua was arrested by officers of the Dongning Domestic Security Division after speaking with a soldier about Falun Gong. Police searched the room she was renting and seized Falun Gong materials. She was placed under criminal detention at the Mudanjiang Detention Center the same day, and the Hailin Procuratorate approved her arrest in late September. While in custody she developed severe hypertension — systolic pressure reported between 210 and 240 mmHg — and the detention center twice refused to admit her; she was held instead in a supervised ward on the 17th floor of the Mudanjiang Medical College Affiliated Second Hospital, described as a police hospital.
Her case was transferred to the Hailin Procuratorate and then the Hailin City Court. On December 22, 2023, the Hailin court sentenced her to three years and six months in prison. She appealed; on April 15, 2024, the Mudanjiang Intermediate People’s Court upheld the sentence without a new hearing. She was subsequently transferred to the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison in Harbin to serve the term, which the Chinese Human Rights Defenders database records as ending March 18, 2027.
Status and evidence limits
As of the latest reporting, Xiao Hua is serving the 3.5-year sentence in the Heilongjiang Women’s Prison. The specific criminal charge is not stated in any reviewed source; no official court judgment or government record for the case was located. Reporting on this case comes from Falun Gong-affiliated outlets and human-rights monitoring organizations, and is attributed as such.
Identity note: This profile describes 肖华 of Dongning, Heilongjiang, born 1960. She is not PLA General 萧华 (different surname character, died 1985), nor 肖文华 or 肖艳芳 of other cases — separate persons, profiled separately or not at all.
Sources: Minghui victim library, case file i71159 for 肖华; Minghui English, “Additional Persecution News from China” (December 1, 2023); Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Prisoners of Conscience database, individual record for 肖华 (entered February 28, 2024); Rights Defense Network / 维权网, Issue 131 monthly in-custody report (August 31, 2026).
Media and documentation archive: Media and documentation archive for Xiao Hua (肖华)