Chen Mingyan, a resident of Yucheng District, Ya’an, Sichuan, files complaints and reports alleging forced labor, violent assaults by fellow inmates and other problems at Chengdu Women’s Prison

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On September 8, 2026, this outlet learned that Chen Mingyan, a resident of Yucheng District, Ya’an, Sichuan, and a human rights defender, was arrested again in 2022 for persistently and actively defending individuals’ legal rights and helping vulnerable individuals participate in rights defense. She was subsequently sentenced to four and a half years in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” On the morning of August 10, 2026, Chen Mingyan was released after completing her sentence and returned home.

On September 6, Chen Mingyan went to the Sichuan Provincial Prison Administration Bureau to file complaints and reports against Chengdu Women’s Prison. Chen Mingyan said that the prison had problems including forced labor, violent assaults by fellow inmates, and poor-quality, overpriced goods in its supermarket.

Chen Mingyan’s profile: Born on September 9, 1976, she is a rights defender from Ya’an, Sichuan, a resident of No. 34 Wu’an Street, Yucheng District, Ya’an, and a petitioner defending her rights.

She previously petitioned after a court wrongfully adjudicated a case concerning her child’s support payments, and was subsequently illegally detained and held several times by the authorities because of her repeated petitions;

From March 2009 to March 2012, she was 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 picking quarrels and provoking trouble,” and forcibly subjected to a psychiatric evaluation by the Yucheng District police in Ya’an. The evaluation concluded that Chen Mingyan had 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 she was kind-hearted and willing to help petitioners in distress, also regularly sent money and supplies to petitioners and rights-defending citizens detained 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. She thus grew into an active rights-defending citizen;

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

On January 25, 2016, she was formally arrested on the same charge. On November 2, 2016, the 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 the 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 Jiang Chengfen, a volunteer with the Skynet Volunteers;

On June 1, 2017, the Yucheng District Court of Ya’an, Sichuan, sentenced her at first instance to four years in prison and fined her 3,000 yuan for “using a cult organization to undermine implementation of the law.” She appealed because she disagreed with the judgment, 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 torture and abuse by detention-center guards, including verbal abuse, beatings and being placed in “turtle” shackles. She had previously been detained at the Ya’an Detention Center in Sichuan.

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