Classification: Falun Gong practitioner and businesswoman from Shenzhen, Guangdong; detained in June 2023; sentenced in May 2024 to four years in prison; reported in custody with a term running to June 2027.
Background
盛丽 (Sheng Li), born 1976, is a woman originally from Dalian, Liaoning Province, who built a business career in Shenzhen — founding a factory and running her own foreign-trade company — and lived in Bao’an District, Shenzhen. She began practicing Falun Gong in August 2019.
Detention and sentencing
In May 2020 she was detained by Bao’an district police after speaking about Falun Gong in public and was held at the Bao’an detention center. On May 18, 2021, the Nanshan District Court sentenced her to one year and five months in prison and a 2,000-yuan fine.
On June 19, 2023, she was criminally detained after giving a Falun Gong periodical to a middle-school student, who reported her to the school and police; she was held at the Bao’an Jiuwei Detention Center. On May 13, 2024, she was tried and sentenced to four years in prison. The formal charge and the facility where she is serving the sentence are not publicly confirmed. Her term is recorded as ending on June 18, 2027.
Current status
As of August 31, 2026, she was listed among in-custody political prisoners in the “Sentenced to 4 years, 171 people” group of the Rights Defense Network’s monthly report.
Identity note: This 盛丽 (Sheng Li) is not 施凤香 (Shi Fengxiang) — a Falun Gong practitioner from Harbin, Heilongjiang, sentenced to nine years in 2018 — and not 施德来 (Shi Delai), the Hong Kong 47-person-case defendant. Similar-sounding surnames, different people. She is also not any of the unrelated “Sheng”/”Li” namesakes in search results (李升星 / Li Shengxing, 李庆生 / Li Qingsheng, 连圣德 / Lian Shengde, 张盛全 / Zhang Shengquan, 余胜华 / Yu Shenghua, 王良生 / Wang Liangsheng).
Sources: Minghui (明慧网), “炼功获新生 深圳市女企业家盛丽被枉判四年” (July 27, 2024) — a Falun Gong–affiliated news outlet; its characterization of the verdict as wrongful is its own framing, not an independent finding, and the judge and prosecutor names it reports are not independently verified; Chinese Human Rights Defenders, Prisoners of Conscience database, individual record for 盛丽 (detained 2023.6.19; four years; term to 2027.6.18; charge and location not publicly confirmed) — the database’s English rendering “Cheng Li” is a romanization variant of the same name, recorded here but not adopted as canonical; Rights Defense Network (维权网), Issue 131 monthly in-custody report, August 31, 2026. All facts are reported by the cited sources.
Media archive: Media archive for 盛丽 (Sheng Li)