Case Details and Biography of Zhou Zixian, a Falun Gong Practitioner from Hengyang, Hunan, Sentenced to 8 Years
(Information Center of the Rights Defense Network report) On May 29, 2026, this outlet learned the case details and biography of Zhou Zixian, a Falun Gong practitioner from Hengyang, Hunan, who was sentenced to 8 years. They are reported as follows:
Zhou Zixian: A Falun Gong practitioner from Hengyang, Hunan Province, born in April 1956, aged 70 in 2026, a junior college graduate and retired employee of the Hengyang Petroleum Company, residing on Zhengxiang South Road, Yueping Xincun Community, Lianhe Subdistrict, Zhengxiang District, Hengyang City. He began practicing Falun Gong in 1997. For more than 20 years, Zhou Zixian has been brutally persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party for adhering to his Falun Gong faith. He has been subjected to illegal detention, “re-education through labor,” and imprisonment, serving more than seven years in wrongful imprisonment in total. During that time, he endured torture including suspension by handcuffs, being handcuffed behind his back, beatings, force-feeding, electric shocks, and confinement in a strict-management cell.
Beginning in June 2022, Falun Gong practitioners in mainland China produced audio recordings and submitted them to the “Zhengjian Radio” section of Zhengjian Net. During their collaboration, they used social media applications such as Signal, Telegram, and Safechat to create groups for communication and exchange. Zhou Zixian participated in this activity, attracting the attention of the Chinese Communist Party authorities. At around 9 a.m. on March 31, 2024, Zhou Zixian was arrested and his home was searched. Police seized his laptop computer, tablet computer, external hard drives, USB flash drives, mobile phone, compact discs, voice recorder, mobile network card, and other items. He was detained at the Hengdong County Detention Center and later transferred to the Hengyang City Detention Center. On December 31, 2025, he was sentenced to 8 years in prison by the Zhengxiang District Court and fined 30,000 yuan. His sentence runs until March 30, 2032.
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