Recently Released Sichuan Ya’an Human Rights Defender Ms. Chen Mingyan Persistently Seeks Redress and Defends Her Rights

On September 21, 2026, this outlet learned: According to a report by Sichuan citizen journalist Huang Xiaomin: In the more than 30 days since Ya’an, Sichuan, resident Chen Mingyan was released after completing her sentence, she has persistently sought redress for herself and fought for her rights, traveling between governments at two levels and public security, procuratorate and court authorities in multiple places, and filing real-name public complaints and reports against the abuse of power, knowing violation of the law, falsification, and framing and false accusations by the Yucheng District government and political-legal departments. Staff members of the Ya’an Commission for Discipline Inspection and Supervision, the Ya’an Procuratorate and the Ya’an Court, among others, received Chen Mingyan courteously.

Chen Mingyan’s profile: Born on September 9, 1976, she is a rights defender from Ya’an, Sichuan Province, a resident of 34 Wu’an Street, Yucheng District, Ya’an, and a petitioner defending her rights.

She once petitioned after being subjected to an unjust court ruling concerning child support, and was later illegally detained and held several times by the authorities because of her repeated petitions;

From March 2009 to March 2012, she was successively detained for five days by Beijing police, criminally detained for 30 days by Ya’an police, held beyond the statutory period for 94 days by Ya’an police on suspicion of “the crime of provoking trouble,” and forcibly subjected to a psychiatric assessment by Yucheng District police in Ya’an. The assessment concluded that Chen Mingyan suffered from paranoid schizophrenia, after which she was sent to a psychiatric hospital and held there for as long as seven months; after being discharged, she not only defended her own rights, but, because of her kindness, was also willing to help petitioners in distress. For a long period, she sent money and supplies to petitioners and rights-defending citizens held at the Ya’an Detention Center, frequently received and visited their family members, and actively contacted human rights lawyers from outside the area to intervene in petitioners’ cases, eventually developing into an active rights-defending citizen;

On December 21, 2015, she was criminally detained by Yucheng District police in Ya’an on suspicion of “the crime of using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of state law” merely for forwarding in a WeChat group an image about the global prosecution of Jiang Zemin by Falun Gong;

On January 25, 2016, she was formally arrested on the same charge; on November 2, 2016, Yucheng District police in Ya’an changed the coercive measure and placed her under residential surveillance; on May 16, 2017, she was taken into custody and arrested by Yucheng District police in Ya’an for accompanying her defense lawyer to the Hanyuan County Procuratorate in Ya’an to review the case files of Tianwang volunteer Jiang Chengfen;

On June 1, 2017, she was sentenced at first instance by the Yucheng District Court of Ya’an, Sichuan, to four years in prison and fined 3,000 yuan for “the crime of using a cult organization to undermine the implementation of the law”; she appealed, but the second instance upheld the original judgment;

On April 11, 2020, she was released after completing her sentence; according to reports, during her detention she was frequently subjected to verbal abuse, beatings and torture such as being fitted with “turtle handcuffs” by detention-center guards. She had previously been detained at the Ya’an Detention Center in Sichuan.

Because Chen Mingyan had consistently actively defended individuals’ lawful rights and helped disadvantaged individuals participate in rights defense, she was arrested again in 2022 and later sentenced to four and a half years in prison for “provoking trouble.” On the morning of August 10, 2026, Chen Mingyan was released after completing her sentence and returned home.