Classification: Former political prisoner / human-rights defender / rights activist. Not counted as a current political prisoner.
Current-status verification: September 16, 2026. A September 10 report by Weiquan Wang states that Xu Caihong’s four-year sentence expired on September 7, 2026. The same report said there was not yet specific information confirming her return home. Accordingly, this profile records the custodial sentence as completed while preserving that limitation; it does not infer continued imprisonment without evidence.
Identity and activism
Xu Caihong (徐彩虹), born February 21, 1970, is reported as a rights defender from Xiangyang, Hubei. Front Line Defenders independently described her in 2016 as a human-rights defender who assisted petitioners and participated in commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. Rights-monitoring reports also describe long-running petitioning and support for other rights defenders.
Detention and imprisonment record
- 2008: rights-monitoring sources report interception and confinement after petitioning; allegations of abuse are source-attributed and are not independently adjudicated here.
- 2013: reported criminal detention for 33 days. Available reporting says her husband, not Xu, subsequently received an eight-month sentence; this profile does not transfer his sentence to her.
- 2014: reported one-month criminal detentions in February and again around June 4.
- 2016: Front Line Defenders documents police detention on May 31 in connection with a private Tiananmen commemoration and release on bail on June 29.
- 2018: rights-monitoring reporting records another criminal detention around June 4.
- 2022–2026: returned from Beijing September 8, 2022; criminally detained September 9; formally arrested October 15 on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” August 2024 reporting states that a Xiangyang court sentenced her to four years. The reported sentence-completion date was September 7, 2026.
Classification notes
The evidence supports a history of repeated detention and a completed four-year prison sentence. It therefore supports Former Political Prisoners and Dissidents / Activists / Rights Defenders. It does not support inclusion in the current-prisoner count after the reported September 2026 sentence completion. Earlier allegations of mistreatment are retained only as attributed allegations where independent findings are unavailable.