Zhang Cuifang (张翠芳) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Yuyang District in Yulin City, Shaanxi Province, in her sixties. In July 2024, monitors learned that she had been sentenced to five years in prison — her second prison term — following three court appearances in the spring of 2023.
Zhang began practicing Falun Gong in September 1998. After the practice was banned in China in July 1999, she was repeatedly targeted for refusing to give it up. She was briefly detained in February 2013 while distributing Falun Gong materials, her home was searched by agents of the Fugu County “610 Office” in 2014, and she was arrested again on July 31, 2017 for keeping Falun Gong materials at home — receiving a one-and-a-half-year sentence later that year.
On August 1, 2022, Zhang was arrested by police of the Yuyang District branch in Yulin while handing out informational materials. Her home was searched, and her books and cash were confiscated. She appeared before the Yuyang District Court three times: on March 9, 2023, when the hearing was adjourned after she refused to answer questions; in late March 2023, when the prosecution presented two claimed witnesses; and on May 1, 2023, a hearing her family had not been notified of in advance. The prosecutor had recommended four and a half years. Monitors learned in July 2024 that she had been sentenced to five years. The exact date of sentencing and the prison where she is being held have not been reported. According to the CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database, her sentence runs to July 31, 2027.
Zhang’s husband, who suffered lasting disability from carbon monoxide poisoning years ago, depended on her care; her family faced severe hardship after her imprisonment.
Sources and attribution: The account above is drawn from the CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database record for Zhang Cuifang and Minghui’s Chinese- and English-language reports (July 2024), together with the Rights Defense Network’s August 2026 political-prisoner roster, which lists her in its five-year-sentence group. Accounts of the arrests, searches, and hearings come from these monitoring and advocacy sources and are attributed as such.
Media archive: Zhang Cuifang — Media Archive