Xu Lina, born in April 1973, is a resident of Yongji County in Jilin City, Jilin Province, and a practitioner of Falun Gong. In late 2020 she was detained after speaking with a taxi driver about her beliefs; she was later reported to have received a six-year prison sentence and to be serving it at the Jilin Provincial Women’s Prison.
Background. According to a detailed case report published on March 2, 2023, Xu took up Falun Gong in the 1990s, after experiencing long-term epilepsy, and has lived in Kuaqian Town (口前镇), Yongji County. The report states that after Falun Gong was banned in July 1999, police came to her home on multiple occasions — once, officers from the local “610” office allegedly seized her Falun Gong books and demanded money from her family, and on another occasion officers from a Jilin City steel-plant police unit allegedly photographed her home and took her books.
Harassment in 2020. The same report describes several encounters with the Chengnan (城南) police station in 2020: in May, officers took her to the station after she spoke with an elderly man on the street and later released her; in September, officers came to her door and tried to force entry. These accounts are attributed to the report’s author and witnesses and are not independently verified.
Detention and sentencing. On the afternoon of December 17, 2020, Xu was riding in a taxi and spoke with the driver about Falun Gong. The driver reported her, and police from the Chengnan station intercepted her a short distance after she left the car, according to the report. She was taken to the Jilin City detention center. Her family did not see her for more than a year. In March 2023, the family learned she had been sentenced to six years in prison and transferred to the Jilin Provincial Women’s Prison. No formal charge has been named in the available reporting. The prisoner database maintained by Chinese Human Rights Defenders (CHRD) records her detention date as December 17, 2020, her sentence as six years, her place of custody as the Jilin Provincial Women’s Prison, and the end of her term as December 16, 2026.
Current status. The Rights Defense Network’s monthly roster of prisoners in mainland China listed Xu Lina in custody as of August 31, 2026. Her recorded term ends on December 16, 2026. This page will be updated as further information becomes available.
Source notes for the reader: facts about Xu Lina’s detention and sentencing are reported by Minghui, an overseas Chinese-language outlet that documents cases involving Falun Gong practitioners, and by the prisoner database of Chinese Human Rights Defenders, a human-rights organization. No court verdict or official notice has been located. Where accounts rest on those sources, they are stated as reported.
Person → Media reciprocal-link insertion point: end of page, under the source-notes line — “Related: Xu Lina (徐丽娜) — Media Profile & Archive [link].”
Media and documentation archive: Media and documentation archive for Xu Lina (徐丽娜)