Sun Hongzhu (孙洪柱) is a 73-year-old Falun Gong practitioner from Shouguang City, Shandong Province, currently serving a seven-year prison term for his faith.
According to a July 2025 report by Minghui.org, Sun was arrested on November 9, 2024, by agents of the Shouguang City Domestic Security Office who had been following him. Police accused him of “using a cult to undermine law enforcement” — the charge commonly applied to Falun Gong practitioners — and obtained a formal arrest warrant. His family received no updates about his indictment, trial, or sentencing until July 2025, when a prison notice informed them he had been admitted to Jinan Prison in Shandong Province on June 25, 2025, to serve the seven-year term.
Sun had been repeatedly targeted for his faith before the 2024 arrest. Minghui’s account reports that he served two years of forced labor in 2002 and was tortured at the Changle Labor Camp, being released in 2004. On February 27, 2007, officers from the Chengqu Police Station raided his home, confiscated a DVD player and tape recorder, and — after the family declined to pay a demanded 10,000 yuan — placed him under criminal detention and then gave him one and a half years of forced labor. In September 2017, when police surrounded his home during a nationwide campaign to pressure practitioners to renounce their faith, Sun escaped and went into hiding; police put him on a wanted list and offered a 60,000-yuan reward.
The Prisoners of Conscience Data project lists 孙洪柱 as in prison with a release date of November 8, 2031, last updated August 18, 2025. That registry date is recorded as its own value and is not used to infer a confirmed release date.
Accounts of Sun’s treatment in custody, the circumstances of his 2024 arrest, and his earlier detentions come from practitioner-linked reporting and have not been independently verified. No official Chinese-government or court documentation of the case has been located.
Media profile & archive: Sun Hongzhu (孙洪柱) — Media Profile & Archive