Niu Guifang (牛桂芳), 66, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Hushitai town, Shenbei New District, Shenyang, Liaoning Province. She has been imprisoned twice for her religious practice — once in 2013, when she served a three-year sentence, and again in 2026, when she was sentenced to eighteen months following a trial that March.
Niu was first arrested on the evening of July 19, 2012, along with three fellow practitioners — Niu Guihua, Qu Lihong, and Chen Min — while they were hanging banners in Shenyang. The banners read “The World Needs Truthfulness-Compassion-Forbearance” and “Falun Dafa is Good.” Police from the Xinchengzi Street Police Station made the arrests; the next day, officers from several stations and the National Security Brigade searched the women’s homes. According to Minghui.org, which reports on the persecution of Falun Gong practitioners, officers took cash, a computer, bankbooks, a camera, and other property from Niu’s home, and she was beaten during interrogation.
On January 17, 2013, the Shenbei New District Court tried Niu and Qu Lihong. Their families were notified only the night before the trial, leaving them no time to hire lawyers beforehand. On February 27, 2013, the court sentenced Niu to three years in prison. She, her lawyers, and her family were not notified in advance: court staff traveled to the Shenyang No.1 Detention Center on March 1 to announce the verdict, without issuing a written judgment or informing her of her right to appeal. Two lawyers she hired afterward appealed to the Shenyang Intermediate Court on March 6, 2013; the intermediate court upheld the sentence after a hearing on May 27, 2013. Qu Lihong received three years, suspended for five.
Niu was transferred to the Liaoning Women’s Prison (also reported as Shenyang Women’s Prison) on November 19, 2013. Her family was first allowed to visit on January 20, 2014, and reported she was in poor health — her vision had deteriorated, her hair had grayed, and she had difficulty raising her arm as a result, they said, of torture during the earlier interrogation. Beginning in May 2014, the prison denied all family visits because she refused to write monthly “thought reports” or renounce her beliefs. In October 2014, according to Minghui, she was confined to a small punishment cell, and visits were cut off entirely from May 2014 onward.
More than a decade later, Niu was detained again. Around 6 a.m. on August 27, 2025, several officers from the Hushitai Town Police Station waited outside her home, seized the key from a family member on his way out, forced their way in, and took her into custody, according to Minghui.org. Police raided her home and confiscated her Falun Gong books and informational materials; a neighbor saw that her nose and mouth were bleeding after she was beaten, and she was beaten again during interrogation at the police station. Niu was held at the Shenyang No.1 Detention Center, her case was submitted to the Dadong District Procuratorate, and she was tried by the Dadong District Court in Shenyang on March 11, 2026. The family was told another hearing would follow but received no further information; in early August 2026 they confirmed she had been sentenced to eighteen months in prison. No other details of the prosecution have been reported. Her husband, who suffered a stroke a year before her arrest and relied on her for care, was left in a dire situation, Minghui reported.
The 2013 proceedings against Niu were documented contemporaneously by Minghui.org, with detail on the trial and sentencing, and the 2025–2026 detention was reported by WOIPFG and by independent Chinese-language outlets. China has not published an independent court record of either case. Minghui and WOIPFG are Falun Gong-affiliated organizations; their factual accounts of dates, places, and procedures are consistent with each other across multiple reports, but they have not been independently corroborated by official or neutral sources.
See also: Media Profile & Archive — Niu Guifang.