(Minghui.org) A 55-year-old man in Jianyang City, Chengdu City, Sichuan Province, was released on February 10, 2026, after serving a 2.5-year term because he practices Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Minghui.org previously reported on Mr. Yang Yifan’s arrest and sentencing. Here we present additional details that were not previously available.
Around 11 a.m. on May 19, 2023, Mr. Yang, a former employee of the Aerospace 7111 Plant, was on his way home from grocery shopping, when two plainclothes officers in their 30s approached him and handcuffed him. One officer produced his police ID.
They took Mr. Yang to a black car parked under a highway bridge, searched him, and confiscated over 2,000 yuan in cash, the key to his home, and his cell phone. They said they were from the Chengdu office of the Ministry of State Security. They also said the local police may not know Mr. Yang, but they knew him very well.
The officers drove Mr. Yang to the Jianyang City Police Department. They held him in an interrogation room and restrained him in a metal chair. After forcing him to reveal his address, they raided his rental apartment, confiscating two computers, one cell phone, 24,000 yuan in cash, and his ID. They attempted to force him to give them his cell phone password. He refused to comply, even after an officer tightened his handcuffs.
Mr. Yang was taken back to the police station after the raid. Seven officers worked on his case, led by a man in his 60s. After finishing the paperwork, they took him to the Qinglong Police Station in Chengdu City and handed him over to two officers there.
The two officers also deposed Mr. Yang for some basic information. They took him to a hospital for a physical exam and then detained him at the Xinjin Brainwashing Center. He was charged with “inciting subversion of state power.”
As Mr. Yang was blindfolded on the way to the brainwashing center, he didn’t know where he was at first. He was monitored by two persons and neither of them would tell him the name of the facility.
Because Mr. Yang was previously held at the brainwashing center in 2013, it didn’t take him long to recognize the place, even though many buildings were completely new.
Two days later, eight officers from the Chengdu office of the Ministry of State Security came to question Mr. Yang. They showed him photos of another Falun Gong practitioner, Ms. Wang Ping, and asked if he knew her. Mr. Yang saw many photos of various practitioners from across Sichuan in their cell phones. They also questioned him about a Bluetooth server and other practitioners. He refused to answer any of their questions.
After a few days passed the police blindfolded Mr. Yang again and took him to the Huaqiao Police Station for interrogation. They took photos of him with items confiscated from his residence, although many of the items had nothing to do with Falun Gong.
The police interrogated Mr. Yang two more times and asked him the same questions. He gave the same answer each time. During his court hearing two years later, the judge claimed that he “validated” the answers because he repeated the same thing each time.
On November 5, 2023, two staffers from the Chenghua District Procuratorate in Chengdu City came to the brainwashing center and handed Mr. Yang his formal arrest warrant, which now listed his crime as “undermining law enforcement with a cult organization,” the standard pretext used to criminalize Falun Gong practitioners.
Mr. Yang and Ms. Wang were transferred from the Xinjin Brainwashing Center to the Chengdu City Detention Center on November 9, 2023.
On July 25, 2025, Mr. Yang and Ms. Wang were tried by the Chenghua District Court. Nine people from the two practitioners’ families attended the trial held at the Chenghua District Court on July 25, 2025. The bailiffs took photos of their IDs and didn’t allow them to bring their cell phones into the courtroom. The presiding judge Pu Li and two other judges all wore masks during the trial.
Ms. Wang’s son represented her as a non-lawyer defender and entered a not guilty plea for her.
Mr. Yang’s lawyer, who promised to defend his innocence, entered a guilty plea for him against despite his objection. The lawyer only submitted the medical records of Mr. Yang’s ailing mother and requested a lighter sentence for him, so that he could be released soon to take care of his mother.
Mr. Yang couldn’t hear the prosecutor, the judge or his lawyer clearly due to his hearing impairment. He managed to testify in his own defense and insisted that he didn’t violate any law by practicing Falun Gong.
The judge convicted both Mr. Yang and Ms. Wang at the end of the hearing, sentencing both of them to two and a half years and they were each fined 10,000 yuan.
Both practitioners appealed to the Chengdu City Intermediate Court, which ruled to uphold their original verdicts on December 7, 2025.
Mr. Yang was transferred to the Wenjiang District Detention Center on December 19, 2025. He was released on February 10, 2026.
Ms. Wang, who was arrested on May 10, 2023, was released on February 6, 2026.
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