Zhang Zhilan (张志兰)
Zhang Zhilan (张志兰) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Tangshan, Hebei Province, who was sentenced to seven years and six months in prison in August 2021. Her sentence term runs through February 11, 2028.
Background
Born in 1966, Zhang Zhilan lived in Nanqingtou Village, Xiaozhanggezhuang Town, Fengrun District, Tangshan. According to reporting by Minghui, she began practicing Falun Gong in 2007.
Detention and trial
On the morning of August 12, 2020, during a large-scale police sweep across Tangshan that detained more than fifty Falun Gong practitioners, officers entered Zhang Zhilan’s home by climbing over the wall from a neighbor’s property and took her into custody. She was held at the Tangshan No. 1 Detention Center.
On July 20, 2021, Zhang Zhilan stood trial at the Luannan County Court together with twelve other practitioners detained in the same sweep. On August 27, 2021, the court sentenced her to seven years and six months in prison with a 20,000-yuan fine. The specific charge was not disclosed in the available record, and no official court document has been located.
Appeal
Zhang Zhilan appealed to the Tangshan Intermediate Court. On January 13, 2022, the intermediate court upheld the original verdict without holding a hearing; the ruling was delivered by Luannan court staff. Her sentence term runs through February 11, 2028.
Current status
As of the most recent dated records — the upheld sentence with its term through February 11, 2028, and her listing among currently detained political prisoners in the August 2026 monthly report of the Chinese-language human-rights site 维权网 — Zhang Zhilan is currently imprisoned. The facility where she is currently held is not identified in the available record.
Media archive for this case: Zhang Zhilan (张志兰) — Media Profile & Archive