Cui Xiuju (崔秀菊), a woman in her seventies from Longkou City, Shandong Province, is a Falun Gong practitioner who was sentenced to three years and nine months in prison in March 2026.
Arrest. On July 17, 2025, Cui was talking to people about Falun Gong at the Xufudawang Community Fair (the Dawang Fair) in Longkou City when plainclothes police officers handcuffed her and pushed her into a cruiser, according to Minghui.org’s account. Police seized her house keys and raided her home, confiscating Falun Gong books, informational materials, and a portrait of the practice’s founder. She was taken to the Yantai City Detention Center around 11 p.m. that night and has been held in custody since. The arrest was part of a one-day sweep in which at least 12 Longkou-area Falun Gong practitioners were detained.
Detention and health. A formal arrest warrant was issued on August 8, 2025. When her lawyer visited her, he reported that she had persistently high blood pressure (systolic readings of 180–190), accompanied by dizziness, a muddle-headed feeling, and memory loss, and that other detainees isolated and verbally abused her for her slow movements, according to Minghui.org.
Prosecution. Officer Guo Fudui of the Longkou City Police Department completed the investigation and submitted the case to the Longkou City Procuratorate on August 18, 2025. Prosecutor Lyu Shasha (吕莎莎) indicted her four days later, on August 22, and forwarded the case to the Longkou City Court — before the family defenders’ power-of-attorney paperwork could be accepted. Family requests to review the case file were refused; a judge assigned to the case, Chi Ya’nan, at one point described the case as “political and sensitive” and said allowing review would “jeopardize the impartiality of the trial.”
Trial. Cui was tried by the Longkou City Court on January 23, 2026, together with fellow practitioners Luan Yanping and Li Yufang. Only two family members of each defendant were allowed to attend. The presiding judge, Zhao Yu, refused to remove the defendants’ handcuffs, repeatedly interrupted the family defenders’ statements, and prevented them from questioning the defendants. The prosecutor presented no physical evidence in court and called none of the five prosecution witnesses.
Sentence. On March 13, 2026, the court sentenced Cui Xiuju to three years and nine months in prison with a 20,000-yuan fine. All three defendants appealed to the Yantai City Intermediate Court. No published account of the appeal’s outcome has been located; her current custody location is not independently verified.
Status. Sentenced and in custody at the last dated reporting (March 31, 2026). Present custody location and appeal outcome are unknown and are not inferred. This profile is source-attributed; a companion media archive with the source chronology, document references, and evidentiary limitations is published separately.
Further reading
The full documented case record for Cui Xiuju (崔秀菊) is preserved in a companion media archive, which gathers the case chronology, cited sources, and evidentiary limitations in one place.