Classification: Falun Gong practitioner in Xianning, Hubei; reported in custody and listed among people serving three-year sentences as of August 2026.
Background
Zheng Rongzhen (郑荣珍) is a retired accountant from Wenquan, Xianning City, Hubei Province, and a Falun Gong practitioner. According to the case records compiled by Chinese Human Rights Defenders and by Minghui, a Falun Gong-affiliated news outlet, she has faced detention and harassment for her practice over many years: a ten-day detention in July 2001 after she delivered food to another practitioner, and a home intrusion and book seizure by police in May 2017. In October 2021, she was arrested after placing Falun Gong materials on a car that belonged to the Xianning public-security bureau chief; she was held in a detention center, and her husband secured her release on bail.
Sentencing — a documented contradiction
The records disagree on the sentence. The Chinese Human Rights Defenders case file records that the Xian’an District Court sentenced her to three years in prison in the fall of 2023 — the charge is not recorded — and that she was immediately taken to the Wuhan Women’s Prison (the Hubei Provincial Women’s Prison) to serve a term running through September 2026. Minghui’s July 2024 report, which the CHRD file cites as its source, instead records a six-month sentence imposed by the same court in January 2023 with suspended execution, followed by her being taken into custody in March 2023. A separate Minghui English report gives yet another version: a six-month sentence in the fall of 2023, admission to the prison in March 2024, and a completed term in September 2024. The Rights Defense Network’s monthly in-custody report for August 2026 independently lists Zheng Rongzhen among 110 people it records as serving three-year sentences and in custody as of that date — consistent with the CHRD three-year record and not with the six-month accounts. The discrepancy is unresolved in the sources.
Current status
The Rights Defense Network’s report for August 2026 lists Zheng Rongzhen among people serving three-year sentences and in custody as of August 31, 2026. The CHRD record gives her term as ending in September 2026. Nothing beyond that is on record — release, sentence reduction, or transfer must not be inferred.
Sources: Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Prisoners of Conscience database individual record (entered August 22, 2024); Minghui (明慧网), July 12, 2024 case report; Rights Defense Network (维权网), Issue 131 monthly in-custody report, August 31, 2026.
Media profile & archive: Zheng Rongzhen (郑荣珍) — Media Profile & Archive