Zhao Guilian (赵桂莲) — Falun Gong Practitioner Imprisoned in Inner Mongolia
Zhao Guilian (赵桂莲), born in 1943, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Damiao Town, Songshan District, Chifeng City, Inner Mongolia. She began practicing Falun Gong in 1997.
According to documented accounts, Zhao Guilian has faced repeated detention since the start of the campaign against Falun Gong in 1999. She appealed in Beijing in 1999, was twice subjected to re-education through labor, and was sentenced twice. In 2011 she was sentenced to three years and six months by the Hongshan District Court of Chifeng after being reported and detained, and served that term in the Inner Mongolia Women’s Prison. In 2023 the Songshan District Court sentenced her to three years’ imprisonment, with the sentence suspended. In May 2025, at age 82, she was taken into custody again and sent to serve the sentence at the Inner Mongolia Women’s Prison (Inner Mongolia Women’s Prison, Hohhot), with the term reported to run until May 2028.
Her case was included in the mainland political-prisoner roster’s 3-year sentence band as in custody on August 31, 2026, and in the Prisoners of Conscience database with a 3-year term, release date May 2028, and detention at the Inner Mongolia Women’s Prison.