(Minghui.org) Three women from Longkou City, Shandong Province appeared in the Longkou City Court on January 21 and 23, 2026, for their shared faith in Falun Gong, a spiritual discipline that has been persecuted by the Chinese communist regime since 1999.
Ms. Luan Yanping (in her 50s), Ms. Li Yufang (in her 70s), and Ms. Cui Xiuju (in her 70s) were arrested at a community fair on July 17, 2025, during a police sweep of local Falun Gong practitioners. They were admitted to the Yantai City Detention Center at around 11 p.m. and have been held there since.
When Ms. Cui’s lawyer visited her, he learned that she had persistently high blood pressure, which was accompanied by dizziness and memory loss. The guards strictly limited the time that detainees could spend on meals and showers, and Ms. Cui was despised by the inmates for her slow movements.
Officer Guo Fudui of the Longkou City Police Department Guo completed the “investigation” and submitted the case to the Longkou City Procuratorate on August 18, 2025. Ms. Li and Ms. Luan’s families went to the procuratorate, but were told the case had not been received. The staffers there also refused to disclose who the prosecutor in charge was. Two days later, the families were told that the procuratorate finally received the case. They immediately submitted two relatives’ requests to serve as non-lawyer defenders and review the case file, but were told the practitioners themselves must sign a power of attorney.
The families returned to the procuratorate with the power of attorney on August 22, 2025, only to be told that prosecutor Lyu Shasha had already indicted the practitioners and forwarded the case to the Longkou City Court.
After judge Chi Ya’nan was assigned to work on the case, the practitioners’ families submitted their power of attorney and requested to review the case file, meet with the practitioners, and be provided with the legal basis for the prosecution. Chi either refused to meet with them or asked irrelevant questions during the meetings. At one point, she claimed that the case was “political and sensitive” and that allowing the family defenders to review the case file would “jeopardize the impartiality of the trial.”
The prosecutor Lyu, judge Chi and Zhao Yu, chief judge of the Criminal Court, later stopped answering the families’ phone calls.
Related Reports:
Longkou, Shandong Province: 12 Falun Gong Practitioners Arrested in One Day, 4 Indicted
70-Year-Old Woman Faces Prosecution for Her Faith, Family Works Tirelessly to Seek Her Release
Copyright © 1999-2026 Minghui.org. All rights reserved.
