Who is Zhang Yibo?
Zhang Yibo (张轶博) is a Shanghai resident and Falun Gong practitioner who was sentenced to five years in prison in connection with the development and use of software designed to circumvent internet censorship in China. Born in 1979, she was a finance manager at a Shanghai foreign-invested communications company and held United States permanent resident status, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders prisoner database.
The 2021 arrest and trial
Zhang was detained on October 9, 2021, in a large-scale operation against Falun Gong practitioners linked to the oGate project, a tool for getting around the internet firewall, according to the Falun Dafa Information Center, which cites the Minghui website and acquaintances of the couple in the United States. She and her fiancé, He Binggang, were taken by police from Shanghai’s Xianxia Road police station and Changning state-security personnel; their homes were searched and their computers and equipment confiscated.
Zhang’s case record states that she was first detained by Huangpu and Changning police on suspicion of endangering state security, formally approved for arrest by the Changning District Procuratorate, and held in the Changning District Detention Center. While in detention she developed a malignant chest tumor and her requests for medical release were denied. In March 2022 the Changning Procuratorate indicted her, and the case was transferred to the Fengxian District Court that June. On June 12, 2023, the court sentenced her to five years’ imprisonment; she appealed, and the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court upheld the verdict, according to the Chinese Human Rights Defenders database. (The Falun Dafa Information Center reports the June 12, 2023 sentence as issued by the Shanghai No. 1 Intermediate Court; the two accounts differ on which court handed down the first sentence.) Her five-year term ran to October 8, 2026. She served her sentence in the Shanghai Women’s Prison in Songjiang District.
An earlier imprisonment
This was not Zhang’s first prison term. On June 4, 2009, she was detained along with her mother by Luwan District police and staff of the Xuhui District “610 Office” over her faith. She was placed under criminal detention and then formally arrested, held in the Xuhui District Detention Center, and subjected to forced interrogation, according to her case record. On March 21, 2010, the Xuhui District Court sentenced her to one year and six months in prison. After her release she returned to the United States, where she lived and worked until her 2021 trip back to China to visit family.
Where she is now
Her five-year sentence ended on October 8, 2026, according to the case record. No public record confirming her release or her current whereabouts has been found as of the publication of this page. (status last reviewed from sources dated 2024)
Sources
- Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Prisoners of Conscience database — individual case record for 张轶博 / ZHANG YI BO (record entered July 5, 2023). Database search.
- Falun Dafa Information Center, “Falun Gong Practitioners Zhang Yibo and He Binggang Sentenced in Shanghai,” June 21, 2023. Article.
- Rights Defense Network (维权网), monthly political-prisoner report, Issue 131, August 31, 2026 — 张轶博 listed in the “sentenced to 5 years, 111 people” band.