Human Rights Defenders Lin Chunfen and Li Yufeng Administratively Detained for Seven Days After Visiting Beijing’s Futian Cemetery to Pay Respects to Yang Jia

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On March 30, 2026, this outlet learned that on March 26, 2026, before the Qingming Festival, two mainland Chinese human rights defenders, Ms. Lin Chunfen and Ms. Li Yufeng, went to Beijing’s Futian Cemetery to pay respects to Yang Jia, but were intercepted and detained by police and administratively detained for seven days.

Lin Chunfen, a petitioner from Hubei and human rights defender, previously served four years in prison for rights defense. Li Yufeng, a petitioner from Henan and human rights defender, previously served two prison terms totaling eight years for rights defense.

Appendix: Biography of Lin Chunfen: Female, born on December 10, 1970, from Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province; formerly a villager at No. 2 Dingying Avenue, Dingjiaying Town, Danjiangkou City, and a rural migrant from the reservoir area of the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in Danjiangkou City; currently a resident of Room 312, Building 813, Huangzhuang Community, Haidian District, Beijing; Christian, rights petitioner, human rights defender, and formerly detained Chinese rights activist.

In her early years, because she was a rural migrant from the reservoir area of the middle route of the South-to-North Water Diversion Project in Danjiangkou City, Hubei Province, and had never received the government land-occupation compensation she was entitled to, she went to administrative departments at all levels, including village and township authorities, to “report the problem,” and from then on was repeatedly suppressed; on September 7 and September 14, 2010, after her own house faced forced demolition, she and her parents, who lived with her, were beaten while resisting the forced demolition, and in her desperation she used gasoline in an attempt to set herself on fire in protest; although she subsequently went to the local police station to report the case, there was unexpectedly no result, and the authorities still refused to resolve the matter fairly and appropriately; on November 28, 2012, she was criminally detained by police in Dingjiaying Town, Danjiangkou City, for petitioning and imprisoned in the Danjiangkou City Detention Center; on March 1, 2013, she was again administratively detained for 20 days by Danjiangkou police on the grounds of “disrupting the order of a work unit” and “obstructing the performance of official duties”; on March 7 of the same year, local police again imprisoned her in a black jail, while her house was razed to the ground, all valuables inside were lost, and her property, belongings, and livestock were buried and damaged; she subsequently continued petitioning as a result, and went to Beijing to seek assistance with her petition, but instead suffered further humiliation, bullying, detention, imprisonment in black jails, and other persecution; on May 8, 2014, she was intercepted while defending her rights in Beijing, first held at the guesthouse of the Danjiangkou City liaison office in Beijing, and then secretly taken to Room 103 of the Wenhua Hotel in Danjiangkou City, where she was forcibly stripped naked and searched, leaving her deeply humiliated; she went on a hunger strike in protest for seven days and nights; on May 24 of the same year, she was moved to another location and secretly detained for a further two months, during which she was repeatedly beaten and abused by more than a dozen male youths with ties to organized crime who were guarding her, and, in unbearable pain and despair, she pulled out a nail from the window and cut her wrist in an attempted suicide; she survived, but the authorities still forced her to write documents, beating her if she refused; on July 8 of the same year, she was forced to sign and affix her fingerprint to an agreement provided by the Dingjiaying Town government and write a guarantee that she would not petition again, only then finally being released and allowed to return home; in 2015, while petitioning in Beijing, she received assistance and support in her daily life and faith from the Beijing Christian Sheng’ai Fellowship house church, after which she studied the Bible with church believers and was baptized the following year, becoming a Christian; afterward, some of her petition demands were resolved, and the local government built a house for her and her parents as economic compensation for her status as a reservoir migrant (of course, other issues, including land, remained unresolved); at that time she also married in Beijing, and because her husband was a Beijing citizen and worked in Beijing as a doctor, she became a bona fide Beijing wife and lived in the capital with her husband.

Afterward, because the name of the head of household for the residence in her place of origin had been registered in her parents’ names rather than her own, she repeatedly applied to the relevant departments, with her parents’ explicit authorization, requesting that the head-of-household name be changed to her own; however, the relevant government departments repeatedly delayed and failed to resolve her application, forcing her to resume petitioning and filing complaints in Beijing; on October 22, 2018, she was administratively detained for seven days by Danjiangkou police on the grounds of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; on July 27, 2019, she was suddenly taken away by interception personnel from her place of origin, sent back there, and criminally detained by police in Danjiangkou and Shiyan on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and imprisoned in the Shiyan City Detention Center; on August 8 of the same year, the Danjiangkou City Procuratorate formally approved her arrest on the same charge, alleging that she had continuously petitioned non-petition-related state departments since 2012 over the demolition of her house, that this conduct conflicted with relevant laws and regulations then in force, and that, with the 70th anniversary celebrations of the Chinese Communist Party on October 1 approaching, she was arrested on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble” to prevent her from again defending her rights and petitioning, which could have a negative impact on the Party celebrations; on September 24, 2020, she was sentenced to four years in prison by the Danjiangkou City Court of Hubei Province on the same charge; on July 26, 2023, she was released after completing her sentence. She had previously served her sentence at Wuhan Women’s Prison in Hubei Province (No. 97 Baofeng First Road, Qiaokou District, Wuhan City, Hubei Province, postal code: 430030).

Li Yufeng: Female, born on March 10, 1958, from Xiuwu County, Henan Province; Christian, rights-defending citizen, human rights defender, and formerly detained Chinese rights activist.

In the late 1990s, after her home had suffered two improper government demolitions and she had sustained huge losses, she was forced to file a lawsuit and won the case; but because the defendant was the local government, the court refused to enforce the judgment, forcing her to petition in defense of her rights; because she continued defending her rights, the authorities maliciously retaliated against her and sentenced her to two years in prison for “obstructing official duties”; after her release, she continued suing the local government, suffered further pressure, and was again sentenced to one year and six months of reeducation through labor; during her two imprisonments, she was subjected to severe torture. On September 30, 2014, after going with others to the prison to welcome the release of Yuan Dong, a rights representative of the “New Citizens Movement,” and being the first to unfurl a banner reading “Welcome Yuan Dong from the small prison back to the big prison,” she was criminally detained by police in Beijing’s Daxing District on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; on November 6 of the same year, the Daxing District Procuratorate of Beijing approved her arrest; on June 5, 2015, she was released on bail pending trial; during her detention, she was subjected to more than 50 surprise interrogations, most of them prolonged interrogations, causing severe physical and psychological persecution; on October 26 of the same year, she was again criminally detained by Fengtai police in Beijing for one month for taking photographs at Beijing South Railway Station, after which she was handed over to the authorities in Jiaozuo and taken back to her place of origin, where she was criminally detained again for supplementary investigation, later formally arrested, and imprisoned in the Jiaozuo City Detention Center in Henan Province; on January 16, 2017, she was sentenced to four years in prison by the Zhongzhan District Court of Jiaozuo City, Henan Province, for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and served her sentence at Zhengzhou Women’s Prison; on February 21, 2019, she was released after completing her sentence; on July 5 of the same year, after she and her companion Feng Xixia went to the Supreme People’s Court in Beijing to file a petition and then went to the Beijing liaison office of the Henan Provincial Court to report judicial corruption and the creation of wrongful convictions, she was arrested and criminally detained by personnel from the Jiaozuo stability-maintenance office; on August 8, she was formally arrested by Jiaozuo police on suspicion of “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; in September 2020, her case was transferred by the local procuratorate to the Zhongzhan District Court of Jiaozuo City, Henan Province; on September 30, 2021, she was sentenced at first instance to four years in prison by the Zhongzhan District Court of Jiaozuo City for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble”; on July 4, 2023, she was released after completing her sentence. She had previously served her sentence at Zhengzhou Women’s Prison in Henan Province.