MR. ZHOU DEYONG, a senior geological engineer in Shandong Province, was arrested in a police sweep with 10 other Falun Gong practitioners and their family members on April 23, 2021. He has since been held at the Binhai Detention Center.
(Photo: Zhou Deyong and his wife, You Ling, in Arizona on vacation, January 2020. Zhou’s wife and son currently reside in Florida.)
Latest update: Zhou’s son, Zhou You, speaks at a congressional panel in Washington, D.C. to call for his father’s release on May 23, 2023. (His speech begins at 03:35 and ends at 08:45.)
Case Summary
Zhou Deyong / 周德勇 – Gender: Male
Current status: Sentenced to 8 years on April 22, 2023.
Reason for Detention: Possessing Falun Gong books and materials
Past Detentions: Unknown. Reports of torture between 2021-present, resulting in full mouth teeth loss and a variety of other health issues.
Current location: Shandong Prison (山东省监狱), Shandong Province
U.S. Family Residence: Wife and son in Florida
Personal Background
Mr. Zhou Deyong is a senior geological engineer in Shandong Province. More updates on the way.
Mrs. You Ling, wife of Zhou Deyong, is a Florida resident. Both her and her son on the Chinese Communist Party’s blacklist due to their active participation in events exposing the persecution of Falun Gong in the United States.
Mrs. You Ling participated in a rally in Saint Petersburg, Florida on July 16, 2022 to call for the end of the persecution of Falun Gong on its 23rd anniversary.
Mr. Zhou You, son of Zhou Deyong, is a software engineer and Youtuber in the United States. He has traveled from Florida to Washington D.C. and New York to raise awareness about his family’s plight and request for his father’s release.
Zhou You speaks at a congressional panel in May 2023 to call for the release of his father.
Timeline
April 22, 2023: Zhou was sentenced to eight years. In the final verdict, the judge charged Zhou as an accomplice of his wife You, even though Zhou was not involved with information dissemination. Another charge against Zhou was his Twitter history. While he was in the U.S., Zhou Deyong tweeted about the Chinese regime’s crimes in history and the severity of the persecution of Falun Gong in China.
March 2023: Third trial Mr. Zhou stood the last of three trials on March 2, 2023.
January 2023: Second trial Mr. Zhou stood the second of three trials on January 15, 2023.
August 2022: First trial After being detained in Binhai Detention Center for 16 months, Mr. Zhou stood the first of three trials on August 25, 2022.
May 19, 2021: Faced trial at Liuyang City Court Mr. Zhou’s son in Florida called the Dongying District Procuratorate to complain about the police’s violation of his father’s rights. He told them that his Congressional representative in the United States, Florida Representative Gus Bilirakis, had personally written to Xi Jinping about his father’s case. An hour later, the detention center allowed Mr. Zhou’s lawyer to meet with him.
May 1-18, 2021: Denied Rights to Lawyer Following his arrest, police denied Mr. Zhou access to his lawyer, who had tried to make appointments to visit him in early May 2021. His lawyer went to the police department on May 19 to demand to see Mr. Zhou. The police agreed to let him come back a week later, but one day before, the police canceled the visit. Despite the visit being canceled, the lawyer went at the scheduled time.
April 23, 2021: Arbitrarily Arrested Mr. Zhou Deyong was arrested in a police sweep with 10 other Falun Gong practitioners and their family members on April 23, 2021.
January 2020: America Mr. Zhou Deyong last saw his family in 2020, when he came on vacation. It is unclear when Zhou went back to China.
News & Actions
May 2023: The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom added Zhou Deyong’s biography to the Freedom of Religion or Belief Victims List.
May 2023: The Tom Lantos Human Rights Commission’s Defending Freedoms Project added Zhou Deyong as a prisoner of conscience for members of Congress to adopt. Representative Gus Bilirakis is listed as an advocate of Zhou’s case.
September 22, 2022: Senator Marco Rubio led a group of Florida lawmakers to write a formal request to Secretary of State Antony Blinken for Zhou Deyong’s release from detention.
2021: The Congressional-Executive Commission on China adds Zhou Deyong to the Political Prisoner Database.
Take Action
Send an encouraging letter directly to Mr. Zhou Deyong
People who have survived Chinese prisons and escaped to the U.S. attest to the enormous difference it can make to hear from the outside world directly. It lifts the spirits of those wrongfully detained, and shocks local officials, making them wary of participating further in persecution.
You can send cards directly to Mr. Zhou Deyong to this address:
Shandong Prison 山东省济南市工业南路91号, 210信箱11分箱, 邮编：250100 P.O. Box #210-11, 91 Industrial South Road, Jinan, Shandong Province, 250100, P.R. China
