Second Instance Upholds Original Judgment Against Ms. Guan Xiaoyan, Human Rights Defender from Jimo District, Qingdao, Shandong, Sentenced to Four Years at First Instance

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On September 7, 2026, this website learned that the second instance upheld the original judgment against Ms. Guan Xiaoyan, a human rights defender from Jimo District, Qingdao, Shandong, who was sentenced to four years at first instance.

At first instance, Guan Xiaoyan was sentenced to three years and six months in prison for the crime of picking quarrels and provoking trouble; eight months in prison for the crime of obstructing official duties; with a combined sentence of four years in prison. Her sentence runs until December 20, 2026. Guan Xiaoyan was dissatisfied with the first-instance judgment and filed an appeal. The second instance upheld the original judgment. She has now been transferred to the Third Ward of Jinan Women's Prison to serve her sentence. Specific correspondence address: Mailbox 822, Sub-box 103, No. 3777 Century Avenue, Suncun Town, Jinan High-tech Zone, Shandong Province, postal code 250104.

Guan Xiaoyan's biography: Female, born on March 27, 1966, from Jimo District, Qingdao, Shandong Province; formerly a rural teacher in Lancun Town, Jimo District, Qingdao; currently a senior teacher in the primary-school division of Qingdao Jimo Shanshi Experimental School (nine-year integrated system); a victim of forced demolition; a rights-defending citizen; initiator of the joint signature campaign by the online petitioners' group “Golden Wings”; a human rights defender; and a Chinese rights defender currently in detention.

Since October 2018, because her own home was facing forced demolition, she resisted, petitioned, and filed complaints, but after these efforts failed, she was repeatedly summoned and detained by police from the Chao'hai District police station in Jimo, Qingdao, and was detained twice and nearly murdered three times. Therefore, in order to fight for her lawful rights and seek justice, she reported the matter to local provincial and municipal government-affiliated departments for a year, but still achieved no result;

On August 30, 2019, her two residences (both with property certificates) were forcibly demolished by the local Chao'hai District government’s demolition office while she was in detention; three days later, the government again sent multiple people to the detention center several times to pressure her to sign the Agreement on Ceasing Appeals and Petitioning, and threatened her, saying that regarding the demolition issue, “Do not resist the government; be careful! Even without a crime, you can still be formally arrested”;

On June 23, 2020, she went to the Jimo Hotel to apply to inspect how materials submitted several days earlier had been handled by the 10th inspection team of Shandong Province. She was again taken by Tongji District police to the police station for more than five hours of interrogation, and was beaten, leaving bruises all over her body; at the same time, in order to force her to abandon the litigation, the authorities repeatedly demanded that the Education Bureau punish her, resulting in nearly three years of deductions from her wages and bonuses that should have been paid, continuing until her retirement; on September 28 of the same year, because she continued petitioning at the National Public Complaints and Proposals Administration over the “unfair forced demolition,” she was intercepted and interrogated for a long time, and the medicines and insulin injections she needed were forcibly left behind at a small hotel, ultimately causing her blood sugar to surge and her heart condition to recur, nearly costing her life; on November 10 and December 1, 2020, the forced-demolition case she had brought against the local railway authorities and the Qingdao Intermediate People's Court was heard twice, respectively, but because the judges adjudicating the case rendered a perverse judgment, they ultimately arbitrarily and forcibly closed the case;

In August 2021, she took the lead in signing a joint petition signed by 4,000 people, proposing that the power to impose administrative punishments restricting personal freedom be transferred from the public security organs to the procuratorates, in preparation for submitting it to the National People's Congress; on September 16 of the same year, Wang Guangying, a leader of her workplace—the Jimo Shanshi Experimental School—questioned her about the joint petition and urged her to give up defending her rights; after she refused, she was soon arrested eight days later. It was later learned that, because of the joint-signature issue, the authorities placed her under residential surveillance in a hospital for one year, and she was released on bail only in October 2022; during the bail period, despite being subjected to intensive surveillance, she continued actively using the internet to conduct legal-education activities among the petitioner community in defense of her rights;

In May 2023, she launched a joint signature campaign titled “Golden Wings” among the online petitioner community, hoping to submit the signatures to the National People's Congress to apply for the establishment of a Petitioner Supervision and Management Committee; the signature campaign immediately attracted public attention, bringing the total number of signatures to more than 11,800, and all signatories provided photographs of both sides of their identity cards as the basis for real-name signatures; because it attracted public attention and heated discussion, petitioners in various places later began to be summoned one after another by local police to make statements and answer questions;

On June 21, 2023, she was again arrested by Jimo police on suspicion of “organizing a joint signature campaign to ‘oppose the arbitrary detention of rights defenders by police officers’”; on April 10, 2024, her case was heard inside the Second Qingdao Detention Center, but because she refused to promise to give up her right to defend her rights, the hearing was postponed several times, and there was still no specific judgment; people of conscience called on the Qingdao authorities of the Chinese Communist Party to release her as soon as possible and provide her with humanitarian medical assistance. Ms. Guan Xiaoyan's case was heard on the morning of February 6, 2026; the first-instance judgment sentenced her to three and a half years plus eight months, to be served concurrently as four years, on the charge of establishing a Petitioner Supervision Committee. Guan Xiaoyan was dissatisfied with the judgment and filed an appeal. Her sentence runs until: December 20, 2026. Guan Xiaoyan was previously detained at the Second Qingdao Detention Center and has now been transferred to the Third Ward of Jinan Women's Prison to serve her sentence. Specific correspondence address: Mailbox 822, Sub-box 103, No. 3777 Century Avenue, Suncun Town, Jinan High-tech Zone, Shandong Province, postal code 250104.