Song Hongwei (宋宏伟) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Suihua City in Heilongjiang Province, northeastern China. She was detained by police on September 22, 2022, and later sentenced to six years in prison; she is being held at the Heilongjiang Provincial Women’s Prison.
This profile is drawn from the Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) Prisoners of Conscience database and a July 2023 report by the Falun Gong-affiliated outlet Minghui, which the CHRD database cites as its other source for her record.
Prior detention and imprisonment
Song Hongwei had previously been sentenced to one and a half years in prison for practicing Falun Gong and was released in April 2020. According to the CHRD record and the Minghui report, she was subjected to torture while in detention — including beatings, the “tiger bench,” and confinement in a small cell — in detention centers, a police detention facility, and the women’s prison.
In October 2018, her husband Yang Chuanhou was detained with other practitioners in Lanxi County. When Song Hongwei traveled to Lanxi on October 10, 2018 to inquire about his case and bring clothing, she was detained as well. The Minghui report states that she and the others were tried on May 14, 2019 by the Anda City Court; Song Hongwei was sentenced to one and a half years.
2022 detention and six-year sentence
On September 22, 2022, Song Hongwei was detained by officers of the Wuying Township police station in Suihua while, according to the reports, telling local people about Falun Gong. The same evening she was interrogated by police from the Suihua Beilin District Public Security Bureau and taken to the Suihua City Detention Center.
In August 2023 it was learned that she had been sentenced to six years in prison; the criminal charge of conviction was not reported. In April 2023 she was transferred to the Heilongjiang Provincial Women’s Prison, where she continues to serve her sentence, which runs through September 21, 2028. The Minghui report also stated that her husband Yang Chuanhou was subject to an online wanted notice by police at that time.
Identity note: She is not the 13th National People’s Congress deputy 宋宏伟 (born 1963, male, from Lanxi, Heilongjiang) — a different person — nor 郭宏伟 (Guo Hongwei), a Jilin petitioner who died in 2021.
Sources: CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database record (entered September 10, 2023); Minghui, “黑龙江绥化市宋宏伟女士又被非法判刑六年” (July 26, 2023). The criminal charge of conviction has not been reported by any located source and is not stated.
Media and documentation archive: Media and documentation archive for Song Hongwei (宋宏伟)