Wang Hongmei (王洪梅) is a Falun Gong practitioner from Yinan County in Linyi, Shandong Province. Born in 1967, she worked at the Yinan County fertilizer factory before she was left without income after she was detained for traveling to Beijing to appeal for Falun Gong in 1999. On October 24, 2023, she was seized by plainclothes police; the Yinan County Court subsequently sentenced her to five years in prison, and she was transferred to the Jinan Women’s Prison.
The 2023 seizure and five-year sentence
On October 24, 2023, Wang Hongmei was seized on the street by plainclothes officers, according to the case reports. That evening, the head of the Zhuanbu town police station and the domestic-security chief of the Yinan County Public Security Bureau led some twenty officers to her home and another residence of hers, searching both and seizing books and materials. She was placed under fifteen days of administrative detention at the Yinan County Detention Center. On November 9, 2023, when the detention period ended and her family went to collect her, she was instead transferred to the Linyi City Detention Center under criminal detention, and her family could obtain no news of her. She was tried at the Yinan County Court around April 1, 2024, and in early August 2024 the reports learned she had been sentenced to five years. About half a month before the news reached the reporting networks, she had been transferred to the Jinan Women’s Prison. The formal charge was not stated publicly in the reports reviewed. Her recorded term runs to October 23, 2028.
Two decades of prior persecution
Wang Hongmei began practicing Falun Gong in 1999, shortly before the July 20, 1999 ban. That year she traveled to Beijing to appeal on behalf of the practice and was detained by Yinan County police; she was later laid off from her factory job and lived on odd jobs with the help of her brother while raising her young son after her husband’s early death, according to the case account. In November 2008, county police and the “610” office carried out a large-scale roundup at Suijiadian village in Yinan County; Wang Hongmei was swept up and, on January 17, 2009, was seized from her home. After a period in a Linyi brainwashing center, she was sentenced to three years of forced labor and held at the Shandong First Women’s Labor Camp, where the reports describe electroshock and sleep-deprivation torture. A January 2009 report independently documents her arrest in the 2008–2009 Yinan roundup. Following her release she returned to her home village of Dongyuezhuang in Zhuanbu township, where she worked night shifts while living with her child.
A note on identity
The name Wang Hongmei is shared by at least three unrelated documented prisoners of conscience. This profile concerns the Yinan County (Shandong) Wang Hongmei, born 1967, a former fertilizer-factory worker sentenced to five years by the Yinan County Court in 2024. It must not be conflated with the Tongnan County (Chongqing) farmer of the same name, born 1970, sentenced to six and a half years in 2004, or with the lecturer of China West Normal University in Nanchong (Sichuan) of the same name who was detained in 2001 and 2010. Those are separate individuals; the anchors — birth year, region, occupation, and case timeline — distinguish them.
Current status
Wang Hongmei is currently imprisoned at the Jinan Women’s Prison, serving a five-year sentence expected to run to October 23, 2028. She appeared in the August 31, 2026 monthly roster of mainland political prisoners maintained by the Chinese-language rights monitoring network 维权网, which lists her among those sentenced to five years and reported in custody. No official court verdict or state-media coverage of her case has been located; the case record rests on the Prisoners of Conscience database entry maintained by a human-rights monitoring organization and the Falun Gong–affiliated case archive, with independent documentation of her 2008–2009 detention.
Sources
- Minghui news, August 8, 2024 — “被非法关押半年后山东沂南县王洪梅遭枉判五年”: reports the October 24, 2023 seizure, the searches, the November 9, 2023 transfer to criminal detention at Linyi, the April 2024 trial at the Yinan County Court, the five-year sentence learned in early August 2024, the transfer to the Jinan Women’s Prison, and her 2008–2009 labor-camp history. Full report
- Minghui (English edition), March 2, 2009 — “Police from Yinan County, Shandong Province Arrest Falun Gong Practitioners and Confiscate Their Belongings”: contemporaneous report of the November 2008–January 2009 Yinan roundup; documents her January 17, 2009 seizure from her home and property confiscation. Full report
- Prisoners of Conscience database (human-rights monitoring organization) — individual record for 王洪梅 / “Wang Hongmei”: female, born 1967; seized 2023-10-24; charge unknown; five-year sentence; term to 2028-10-23; held at the Jinan Women’s Prison. Public search (query name=王洪梅)
- 维权网 / Chinese-language rights monitoring network, Issue 131 monthly report, August 31, 2026: 王洪梅 listed in the “sentenced to five years” group, reported in custody.
Further reading
The full documented case record for Wang Hongmei is preserved in a companion media archive, which gathers the case chronology, cited sources, and evidentiary limitations in one place.