Zhao Hongmei (赵红梅)
Zhao Hongmei (赵红梅), a Falun Gong practitioner from the Haigang District of Qinhuangdao, Hebei Province, was sentenced to four years in prison in 2024. She was born in 1973 and previously worked as a civil servant in an education department, a position she lost after she began practicing Falun Gong.
On the morning of March 8, 2023, Zhao was detained at her elderly father’s home in the Guoxing Lanhaiwan residential complex in Qinhuangdao by national-security police from the Kaifaqu branch of the Qinhuangdao Public Security Bureau. The detention followed surveillance that began after she and another practitioner distributed Falun Gong materials and posted banners in the Qinhuangdao Development Zone on February 23, 2023, following a tip from a member of the public. Police seized her computer, printer, mobile phone, and printed materials. She was held in the Qinhuangdao Detention Center.
In October 2024 it was reported that a local court had sentenced Zhao to four years in prison and imposed a 5,000-yuan fine; her sister was not permitted to attend the trial, and the fine was deducted directly from her bank account by the court. Zhao was subsequently transferred to the Hebei Provincial Women’s Prison (河北省女子监狱). Her sentence is due to end on March 7, 2027.
Zhao’s father, in his nineties, died in 2024, before he was able to see her again.
As of the most recent evidence (October 2024 reporting; sentence through March 2027), Zhao Hongmei is believed to remain imprisoned. No official court document or named statutory charge has been publicly documented for her case; available sources describe the detention as connected to her Falun Gong activities. Her name appears in the 维权网 (Rights Defense Network) monthly prisoner report, Issue 131 (August 31, 2026).