Current classification: RELEASED / NOT CURRENTLY KNOWN IMPRISONED; publicly active in China after release.
Zhou Shifeng (周世锋) is a Chinese rights lawyer and former director of Beijing Fengrui Law Firm. He was detained on July 10, 2015 during the 709 Crackdown and later prosecuted on a subversion charge.
Conviction and imprisonment
In August 2016, the Tianjin No. 2 Intermediate People’s Court sentenced Zhou to seven years in prison and five years’ deprivation of political rights. State descriptions of the case and conviction are treated as attributed government claims; P1 separately preserves rights-group reporting on due-process and political-prosecution concerns.
Release and current activity
Zhou was released after serving his prison term in 2022. Public reporting in 2025 documented continued complaints and petitions by Zhou concerning the 709 crackdown, while Radio Free Asia interviewed him in July 2025 for the crackdown’s tenth anniversary. Reporting also described continuing surveillance and restrictions. In February 2026, secondary reporting again described Zhou issuing a public letter concerning detained journalist Liu Hu. These public activities support a released/not-currently-imprisoned classification; they do not establish that post-release restrictions have ended.
Evidence and provenance
- Congressional-Executive Commission on China — 709 report, July 2025
- Radio Free Asia — July 7, 2025 interview
- NTD — February 2026 report on Zhou’s public letter
Primary-source gap: P1 is still seeking the operative judgment, prison/release records, and authoritative instruments governing any post-release restrictions. A discrepancy in secondary-source release dates remains open and is not resolved here by inference.
709 Crackdown archive · Rights-Defense Lawyers hub
709 / rights-defense reconciliation update — 2026-09-14
Current-status evidence: RELEASED 2022 after seven-year sentence; post-release restrictions reported
Zhou Shifeng, former director of Beijing Fengrui Law Firm, was detained in July 2015, convicted of subversion in 2016 and sentenced to seven years. He completed the prison term and was released in September 2022; later reporting describes continuing restrictions and surveillance.
Source: verified/corroborating record.
Evidence rule: FreeChina.live does not infer present custody, release dates, or the end of post-release restrictions from sentence arithmetic. Where current status remains uncertain, the record remains open for source recovery.
709 Crackdown archive · Rights-Defense Lawyers hub · People Directory
Dated status update — July 8, 2026
Current status: Released from prison, but continuing restrictions and surveillance are reported.
Radio Free Asia reported on July 8, 2026 that Zhou Shifeng remained subject to monitoring and restrictions after completing his seven-year sentence. The report described repeated permanent suspension of his WeChat accounts, impediments to travel and meeting others, and continuing efforts by Zhou to submit complaints concerning alleged abuses connected with the 709 crackdown. This later evidence strengthens the released-but-restricted classification; it does not establish that all post-release controls have ended.
Source: Radio Free Asia, July 8, 2026, 709十年后：周世锋律师仍在限制中生活.
Evidence control: This dated update supplements rather than rewrites the historical detention, conviction, sentence and release record.