Case Details and Biography of Zhou Huajian, a Falun Gong Practitioner from Maoming, Guangdong, Sentenced to 9 Years

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On July 6, 2026, this publication learned of the case details and biography of Zhou Huajian, a Falun Gong practitioner from Maoming, Guangdong, who was sentenced to nine years in prison. The information is reported below:

Zhou Huajian: Born in March 1951, he is from Nantangtou Village, Nanxiang, Yangjiao Town, Maonan District, Maoming City, Guangdong Province; a security guard at a restaurant in Maonan District, Maoming City; a Falun Gong believer; and a detained prisoner of conscience in China.

In 1997, he began to accept and practice Falun Gong; later, because he had always been very healthy and was upright and kind, he took a security guard job at a restaurant in Maonan District, Maoming City; however, after the Chinese Communist Party began its continuous persecution of Falun Gong in July 1999, he was repeatedly detained and persecuted by the Chinese authorities because he persisted in practicing Falun Gong and maintaining his faith; on March 26, 2020, because he was using a Falun Gong-specific truth-clarification base station to send Falun Gong informational messages to others at the Meihua Market in Meihua Town, Maonan District, he was soon discovered through monitoring by the Internet police and was consequently arrested by the Maonan District police of Maoming City and the police of the Xiyue Police Station in Maonan District on the grounds of “promoting ‘cult content’”; his home was searched the same day, and his printer, computer, Falun Gong books, more than 9,000 yuan in cash, electric bicycle, and other property were seized on the spot; the police also obtained all the communications records, bank-account information, and transaction records from his mobile phone; the next day, he was formally criminally detained and held at the Maoming City No. 1 Detention Center; on April 26 of the same year, the Maonan District Procuratorate formally approved his arrest; on July 17 of the same year, the procuratorate indicted the case and submitted it to the trial division of the Maonan District People’s Court of Maoming City for examination and trial; on April 6, 2021, the case was formally heard at the Maonan District Court, but on the day of the hearing, when his defense lawyer attempted to enter the court with electronic devices (namely, a work computer and mobile phone), the presiding judge and chief judge of the court barred the lawyer from entering on the grounds that the case was a “major sensitive case, and electronic devices may not be brought in without permission”; repeated negotiations between the two sides produced no result, ultimately leading the court to announce that the hearing was canceled; afterward, in order to prevent the lawyer from continuing to defend him at trial, the judicial authorities even sent people at the end of April to threaten the lawyer’s elderly parents, with the aim of having the lawyer representing him dismissed and replaced by a court-appointed lawyer; afterward, his case was repeatedly postponed; on January 5, 2022, the case was heard again at the Maoming City No. 1 Detention Center, but because one of the two lawyers he had hired was forcibly expelled by the court, the hearing was hurriedly adjourned and ended after 20 minutes; later, because the COVID-19 pandemic was spreading, his case remained adjourned and was postponed further, until April 27, 2023, when his case was secretly heard again at the Maoming City No. 1 Detention Center; on July 10 of the same year, the Maonan District Court ultimately sentenced him to nine years in prison for “using a cult organization to undermine implementation of the law” and fined him 20,000 yuan; dissatisfied with the judgment, he filed an appeal; on November 8, 2023, following a second-instance ruling by the Maoming Intermediate Court, the original judgment was upheld, with his sentence running until March 26, 2029; according to reports, during his period of extended detention, he was repeatedly abused in the detention center, causing serious deterioration in his health; when he appeared in court, he not only had confused thinking, blurred vision, and declining hearing, but also walked unsteadily and had become extremely aged overall, looking like a completely different person from more than three years earlier. Details about the prison where he is currently serving his sentence are unknown.