Case Details and Profile of Ms. Pang Yu, a Co-worker of Xi'an’s “Light of Zion Church,” Who Was Arrested

On September 20, 2026, this website learned the case details and profile of Ms. Pang Yu, a co-worker of Xi'an’s “Light of Zion Church,” who was arrested. The details are hereby reported as follows:

Pang Yu: Female, born in 1958, a native of Xi'an, Shaanxi Province, a Christian, a co-worker of the former “Mount Zion Church” in Xi'an (banned) and the current “Light of Zion Church,” one of the victims of the Light of Zion May 16 church case, and a Chinese prisoner of conscience.

Because she believed in Jesus Christ and married Pastor Gao Quanfu of the former Xi'an “Mount Zion Church,” after their marriage she actively participated for many years in the church’s worship gatherings, and was especially faithful in undertaking assistance, reception, visitation and administrative ministry work within the church; because of her quiet, kind character and steady way of handling matters, apart from caring for her family at home, she ordinarily participated in the church’s daily service, and often spoke for others in the church in a gentle and meticulous manner, and thus enjoyed an extremely high level of trust among both her family and the church’s believers;

On November 29, 2023, the “Mount Zion Church” where she was involved was officially announced as banned by the Xi'an Municipal Civil Affairs Bureau. Afterwards, she, her husband Gao Fuquan and other pastoral co-workers established a new name, “Light of Zion Church,” and continued worshipping, serving and preaching;

On May 16, 2025, her husband, Pastor Gao Quanfu, was taken from their home by police from the Xingqing Road Police Station in Beilin District, Xi'an, on suspicion of “using superstition to undermine the implementation of the law.” The following day, another 10 pastoral co-workers, including Pastor Tang Bingyi, were successively arrested and criminally detained. She was also taken away shortly afterwards and placed under residential surveillance; on July 24, eight pastoral co-workers were eventually released on bail, while her husband Gao Quanfu and Pastor Tang Bingyi were instead placed under arrest. Because she was regarded by the local authorities as an “associated person,” she too was not released; on September 3, 2025, she was formally arrested by police in Beilin District, Xi'an, on suspicion of “fraud.” On the same day, the Beilin District Procuratorate changed the alleged offenses of her husband and Tang Bingyi to “fraud,” and the three were listed as one case. This decision was made because the authorities identified the church’s years of ordinary tithes, donations and book-purchase fees as “proceeds from fraud,” and planned to prosecute the three of them together; the fact is that she herself had never received a church salary, yet was still included in the “fraud case” and implicated;

On January 9, 2026, the case involving the three was formally transferred by the Beilin District Procuratorate in Xi'an to the Beilin District People’s Court in Xi'an for review and prosecution, but it was later learned that the three had again been separated into three cases for handling; at the end of August 2026, it was learned that pretrial conferences for the three would be held separately in September; it is reported that on September 15, when the team of defense lawyers went to the Beilin District People’s Court in Xi'an to negotiate regarding the three individual cases and file complaints in accordance with the law, they were obstructed and treated improperly by court judicial police officers; it was also learned that, because she suffers from heart disease, low blood pressure and severe anxiety, after she was detained, her children repeatedly reported that she lacked effective medication for her heart disease in the detention center and often experienced severe pain during the night shifts, to the extent that it affected basic daily life. They therefore publicly expressed their longing for their mother and concern about her physical condition. She is currently detained at the Beilin District Detention Center in Xi'an.