(Minghui.org) A 77-year-old woman in Zhaoyuan City, Shandong Province, was admitted to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison in mid-January 2026 to serve a one-year term for her faith in Falun Gong.
The wrongful conviction of Ms. Zhang Shuxiang stemmed from her initial arrest on August 14, 2024, while she was talking to people about Falun Gong at a fair. Deputy chief Wang Binhu (+86-13780982988) from the Linglong Town Police Department attempted unsuccessfully to extort money from her and drove her straight to the Yantai City Detention Center. Yantai oversees Zhaoyuan City.
Ms. Zhang had a car accident days ago and had multiple fractures. The detention center declined to admit her, and Wang released her under residential surveillance.
Two plainclothes officers seized Ms. Zhang on August 24, 2024, after receiving a tip that she was distributing Falun Gong informational materials at a fair. They took her to the Linglong Town Police Department. Together with a third officer, they spread out the ten Falun Gong materials confiscated from her bag on the ground. Counting each page of each copy of the materials as a separate piece of evidence, they tallied a total of “40” pieces of evidence. They took pictures of the materials and recorded the contents.
Deputy chief Wang summoned Ms. Zhang’s daughter and ordered her to pay 2,000 yuan to secure her mother’s release on bail. He also produced a summons and said that Ms. Zhang must report to them whenever ordered.
Ms. Zhang asked her daughter not to pay any bail bond. Wang instructed his subordinates to take her picture and take her fingerprints. He next had her driven to Muping City (which is also under the administration of Yantai City) for a physical exam, including X-rays. After that, Ms. Zhang was taken to the Yantai City Lockup.
The Lockup doctor was shocked after reviewing Ms. Zhang’s X-ray results. She had fractures in nine places of her body due to the aforementioned car accident. The doctor determined she was unfit for detention.
Ms. Zhang was driven back to the Quanshan Police Station in Lingong Town. Deputy chief Wang was waiting there. He gave her a notice of house arrest and warned her that he’d “have a good talk with her” in a few days.
The next day, Wang and officers from the Quanshan Police Station took turns calling Ms. Zhang’s daughter, demanding to install surveillance cameras on the younger woman’s apartment entrance and the bedroom where her mother was staying.
Ms. Zhang did not want to implicate her daughter and left the latter’s home. While wandering around, she struggled to care for herself. She had blurry vision —even wearing reading glasses did not help. No matter how good the lighting was, everything looked as if it were shrouded in fog. She had numbness in her right leg and often fell when getting up from a chair or bed. Once she tried to stand up, but couldn’t see well. Her right leg seemed out of commission. She fell backwards and was unable to get up for over 20 minutes. Her car accident-induced fractures hurt even more after the fall.
The police put Ms. Zhang on the wanted list. They also harassed her other daughter around May 2025. Three plainclothes officers broke into Ms. Zhang’s 83-year-old sister's home in March 2026 and confiscated multiple Falun Gong books and other valuables without producing an ID or search warrant.
Judge Shao A’xia from the Zhaoyuan City Court tried Ms. Zhang at her daughter’s home on December 17, 2025, because she had become bedridden at the time. She was sentenced to one year and fined 6,000 yuan about two weeks later.
The verdict stated she was a “repeat offender” as she was previously sentenced to four years for her faith in Falun Gong. The prosecution's evidence included the “40” pieces of Falun Gong materials and the “signatures” she allegedly signed on the interrogation records. Ms. Zhang said the signatures were forged as deputy chief Wang instructed his subordinates to sign her name on the interrogation records right before her eyes.
In mid-January 2026, Wang took bedridden Ms. Zhang away by deceiving her family into believing he would send her back after a physical exam. He never did and instead took her straight to the Yantai City Detention Center. Not long after, she was transferred to the Shandong Province Women’s Prison.