Zhou Yuqin (周育琴)
Zhou Yuqin (周育琴), a Falun Gong practitioner from Huizhou City, Guangdong Province, is serving a ten-year prison sentence. According to Minghui.org, a Falun Gong community publication, Ms. Zhou — described as the owner of a clothing company who had previously served three years of forced labor for her faith — was arrested on September 24, 2016. She was tried together with fellow practitioners Shi Xuemei (石雪梅) and Liu Qingqiang (刘庆强) on January 23, 2018, and the Huidong County Court sentenced her to ten years in prison with a 50,000-yuan fine; the Huizhou Intermediate Court rejected her appeal on September 11, 2018. The Rights Defense Network’s (维权网) monthly political-prisoners report (Issue 131, August 31, 2026) lists her in its 10-year-sentence band, confirming she remains in custody serving her term as of that date.
The case
On September 24, 2016, police in Guangdong carried out a one-day sweep across five cities that netted 23 arrests; Ms. Zhou, then 50, was among those detained in Huizhou. She was held while her case proceeded alongside those of Shi Xuemei and Liu Qingqiang. The three were tried together on January 23, 2018. Minghui reports that the day before the hearing, local authorities threatened to arrest any local practitioners who attended the trial; only five family members of the three defendants were admitted, with the gallery otherwise filled by police and 610 Office agents, and a heavy police presence — including two helicopters — outside the courthouse. Liu and Shi had hired their own lawyers, but police assigned each a different lawyer without informing them or their families; the practitioners’ own lawyers were initially barred from the courthouse before being admitted. It is not clear from the reporting whether Ms. Zhou had legal representation at the hearing. The lawyers entered not-guilty pleas, arguing that no Chinese law criminalizes Falun Gong. The prosecutor alleged the three had used computers and printers seized from their homes to produce and distribute Falun Gong informational materials.
The families were told on March 30 to collect the verdicts at the court on April 2: Ms. Zhou was sentenced to ten years with a 50,000-yuan fine, Ms. Shi to nine years with a 30,000-yuan fine, and Mr. Liu to four years with a 10,000-yuan fine. All three appealed to the Huizhou Intermediate Court, which rejected the appeals on September 11, 2018.
On November 22, 2018, Ms. Zhou and Ms. Shi were admitted to the Guangdong Women’s Prison in Guangzhou (Mr. Liu was admitted to Beijiang Prison in Shaoguan on November 20, 2018). A January 2021 Minghui report on the Guangdong Women’s Prison listed Ms. Zhou among eighteen Falun Gong practitioners then incarcerated there, giving the same case facts.
Earlier targeting
Ms. Zhou had previously served three years of forced labor for her faith, as reported in Minghui’s October 2016 arrest-sweep coverage.
Status and evidentiary limits
As of August 31, 2026, the Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 report lists Zhou Yuqin in its 10-year-sentence band with an in-custody classification. No release date has been stated in any public source; none is given here. The case chronology comes primarily from Minghui.org, a Falun Gong community publication; its reporting is partisan, presenting detentions as persecution, and factual claims are recorded as reported by that publication. No court document, state-media account, or independent international-media reporting on her case was found. The ten-year sentence and current-custody listing are additionally recorded in the Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 roster, which places 周育琴 in its ten-year sentence group in both its Chinese and English editions. A December 2018 Minghui digest’s loose phrasing (“The Huidong County Court upheld the sentences”) is noted — the appeal was decided by the Huizhou Intermediate Court per the April 2018 report. No update on her condition after the January 2021 prison listing has been found. She must not be merged with the Taiwanese television anchor 周玉琴 (different characters, different person), the Taiwanese academic 周育仁 (different name), or 刘玉琴 / Liu Yuqin (different person) on name similarity alone.
Media Profile & Archive: Zhou Yuqin (周育琴) — Media Profile & Archive