The Little-Known Prisoner of Conscience Sentenced to 14 Years—Guo Ran

（(Rights Defense Network Information Center report)）On June 2, 2026, this website learned: Under the Chinese Communist regime’s tight censorship of speech, the political prisoners and prisoners of conscience who have emerged and become known to the outside world are merely the tip of the iceberg of the Chinese Communist regime’s enormous population of victims. These victims of the Chinese Communist regime have been buried by the authorities in dark prisons and have long remained little known. Guo Ran is one of them.

In 2013, Guo Ran was sentenced to 14 years in prison and deprived of political rights for five years by the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, under the Chinese Communist regime, for “subversion of state power.”

Guo Ran: A political dissident, born on October 26, 1981, and a native of Chaoyang District, Beijing, he previously operated a business in the university town in the southern suburbs of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province.

Because he frequently gathered with friends at his place of business to discuss ways to pursue freedom and democracy, he was tracked and discovered by the Chinese Communist authorities. In 2012, Guo Ran and another person were arrested and criminally detained by Chinese Communist police in Chang’an District, Xi’an, under the charge of “subversion of state power,” and held at the Sanyao Village Detention Center in the southern suburbs of Xi’an; relying solely on their speech, the Chinese Communist authorities accused them of conspiring with others to overthrow the Chinese Communist regime. On February 20, 2013, Guo Ran was sentenced to 14 years in prison and deprived of political rights for five years by the Intermediate People’s Court of Xi’an, Shaanxi Province, under the charge of “subversion of state power”; the other person was also given a heavy sentence. The Chinese Communist authorities tried them in secret, and therefore the details of their imprisonment remained little known until December 18, 2018, when the Intermediate People’s Court of Weinan, Shaanxi Province, published a “Criminal Ruling on Guo Ran’s Sentence Reduction” online, from which this became known. Weinan Prison recommended a sentence reduction, but the Intermediate People’s Court of Weinan refused to reduce his sentence on the grounds that he had been disciplined for “repeatedly and seriously violating prison regulations,” leaving his sentence in place through 2026. Guo Ran is currently still serving his sentence at Weinan Prison in Shaanxi Province.