(Minghui.org) A 67-year-old woman in Qingdao City, Shandong Province, was sentenced to four and a half years on August 6, 2026, because she practices Falun Gong.
Ms. Yan Jingqiu was arrested on the afternoon of March 14, 2026, while she was walking to a shoe repair shop. Agents from the Shinan District Police Department took her home and confiscated her personal belongings.
The police taped her hands and mouth, before driving her to the police department’s case processing center. She went on a hunger strike in protest for five days.
During her hunger strike, the police drove her to the Qingdao City First Detention Center. The required physical exam indicated she had a blood pressure reading of 210/130 mmHg (a normal range is 120/80). She was denied admission and taken back to the case processing center.
On March 20, the police taped Ms. Yan’s mouth shut and cuffed her hands behind her back. They then drove her to the Haici Hospital for a physical exam. She overheard the police tell the doctor who measured her blood pressure, “Write a lower reading on the exam report.” The doctor complied, but the Qingdao City First Detention Center still declined to admit her given her poor health. After the police said their police chief ordered them to insist a lower number be written down, the detention center complied.
Ms. Yan’s family was notified the next day that she was issued a formal arrest warrant. They submitted complaints against the arresting officers for arresting their loved one and raiding her home without any legal basis.
The family also went to the Shinan District Procuratorate many times to ask who was the prosecutor in charge of the case. Because no one would tell them, they were unable to submit an application to represent Ms. Yan as non-lawyer defenders.
A court-appointed lawyer later called the family. Only then did they learn that the case had been forwarded to the Shinan District Court. They rushed to the courthouse and submit their application to be her non-lawyer defenders. Judge Qian Jiang demanded to see their no-criminal-record proof. The family submitted the required documentation to the court receptionist, but judge Qian refused to accept it or answer their phone calls.
The lawyer told Ms. Yan’s family that “she heeded his advice to sign a document saying she did not want her family defenders to defend her in court.” But the family was never shown this document.
Judge Qian held a hearing of Ms. Yan’s case at the detention center on July 29, without notifying her family of the date or location. Her family thus missed her trial.
Ms. Yan testified in her own defense. Her court-appointed lawyer entered a guilty plea for her, but disagreed with prosecutor Wang Xuerui’s allegation that Ms. Yan broke the law in putting up self-adhesive stickers which had information about Falun Gong.
Wang listed three witnesses. The first one was a shop owner who contacted the police when he discovered the stickers outside his store. The other two witnesses were Ms. Yan’s neighbor and a community officer worker, who both confirmed that she was a Falun Gong practitioner.
Ms. Yan’s family learned of her wrongful conviction on August 6. She is now appealing the prison sentence.
Previously Given Three Forced Labor Terms and Another Prison Term
Ms. Yan took up Falun Gong in 1996 and soon recovered from her heart disease, hypertension, frozen shoulder, and gastroptosis. After the persecution of Falun Gong began in July 1999, she held firm to her faith and was repeatedly targeted.
She was arrested in October 2000 and given three years of forced labor. The authorities however decided not to enforce the labor camp term and released her.
After another arrest on May 19, 2004, Ms. Yan was given two years of forced labor. She was released from the Wangcun Women’s Labor Camp ahead of time, only to be arrested again on August 4, 2005, and given two and a half years of forced labor. She endured brutal torture at the Wangcun Women’s Labor Camp. Her husband died of leukemia while she was still detained. She was not allowed to see him before he died. See the related reports for details of her labor camp torture.
Ms. Yan was arrested again on July 20, 2016, and sentenced to four years in prison by the Shinan District Court on January 30, 2018. The Qingdao City Intermediate Court rejected her appeal.
Related Reports:
My Own Story: My Sister and I Were Tortured in a Forced Labor Camp, My Father and Husband Died
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