(Minghui.org) Ms. Yu Yingjie was tending to her bedridden mother around 6 p.m. on September 15, 2025 when three officers came with a subpoena and a search warrant. They ordered her to call her younger brother to come immediately and take her place in caring for their ill mother.
After Ms. Yu’s brother and husband arrived the police escorted her out. They also confiscated her cell phone, iPad and Falun Gong books.
Falun Gong is a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese Communist Party since July 1999. Ms. Yu was targeted because she was followed and video-recorded by police while putting up Falun Gong posters. A few other practitioners were also arrested that day.
It is unclear where Ms. Yu, a resident of Changchun City, Jilin Province, is being held. Her husband hired a lawyer to represent her. The lawyer sent the matter to the Jilin Province Public Security Bureau, which directed him to talk to the Changchun City Police Department. He was eventually told that this was a special case directly handled by the police department and that he was barred from representing Ms. Yu. The three arresting officers from the Chongqing Road Police Station were even commended for “doing a great job.”
This is not the first time Ms. Yu, a former pediatric nurse and later owner of a graphic design company, has been targeted for her faith, which she took up more than two decades ago. She previously served three years and two months in prison between 2012 and 2014.
Arrested in 2012 and Secretly Sentenced in 2013
Ms. Yu was arrested at her aunt’s home on November 7, 2012, by two officers from the Changchun City Police Department. She demanded to see their IDs and one of them showed her his. She noted his name was Pan Gaofeng. Prior to her arrest, her husband was summoned to the Caiyu Boulevard Police Station. He suspected that the police began to shadow him after he was released. When he went to Ms. Yu’s aunt’s home to drop off something for her, the police seized her.
The police raided Ms. Yu’s home and graphic design company on November 9, 2012. Her business, which she ran successfully for years, was forced to shut down.
Ms. Yu’s husband hired a lawyer for her but the police refused to talk to the lawyer. They claimed that Ms. Yu’s “criminal facts were clear and indefensible.” While she was held at the Changchun City Third Detention Center, Ms. Yu was repeatedly denied family visits.
Judge Chen Xiaojing deposed Ms. Yu at the detention center and ordered her to use the court-appointed lawyer who was instructed to enter a guilty plea for her. She said she had her own lawyer but Chen claimed that they never received any defense statement from him.
Chen used all kinds of excuses to decline to meet with the lawyer when he went to the Chaoyang District Court to submit his request to represent Ms. Yu. Chen told the lawyer on the phone that she’d notify him of when to come again to review the case file and when to attend the trial. She never did.
Chen held a hearing on November 17, 2013 without notifying Ms. Yu’s husband or lawyer. The trial began at 6:30 a.m. that day. Ms. Yu requested that her lawyer be notified to represent her in court but Chen rejected her request.
Ms. Yu then requested Chen be recused but was ignored. She protested and a man shouted, “If she doesn’t shut up, let’s put a rope around her neck!”
Chen called Ms. Yu’s husband in late November 2013 and said, “I’ve sentenced your wife! File an appeal if you want!” She then hung up and did not pick up the phone when Ms. Yu’s husband called for more information. After much effort, he learned that his wife was sentenced to three years and two months. Ms. Yu was admitted to the Jilin Province Women’s Prison on May 5, 2014.
Related Report:
Changchun City Courts Secretly Sentence Six Falun Gong Practitioners to Prison
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