Case Details and Profile of Ms. Jin Hanyan, a Rights Defender from Yunxi County, Shiyan City, Hubei Province, Sentenced to 8 Years and 6 Months

(Rights Defense Network Information Center report) On June 26, 2026, this website learned of the case details and profile of Ms. Jin Hanqin, a rights defender from Yunxi County, Shiyan City, Hubei Province, who was sentenced to 8 years and 6 months. They are reported as follows:

Jin Hanyan: Female, from Yunxi County, Shiyan City, Hubei Province; a citizen of Group 2 of the residents’ committee of Tumen Township, Yunxi County; a professional victim seeking redress for rights violations; a human rights defender; and a rights defender detained in China.

In the 1990s, she and her younger sister, Jin Hanqin, attended the Shiyan Agricultural School in Hubei Province (now renamed the Shiyan Science and Technology School in Hubei Province), graduating in 1997. Under Document No. [1997]009 of the Ebi Office then in effect, the two sisters should have been promptly assigned clearly defined jobs by the local government and given civil-service positions. However, the Yunxi County government of Shiyan City failed to implement the document’s provisions for the two of them, instead giving their civil-service positions and jobs to others. For this reason, the two of them repeatedly demanded that the local government resolve the issue of their civil-service positions in accordance with the document’s spirit. Later, after their complaints repeatedly failed to produce results, the two of them were forced to petition for redress in the provincial capital and in Beijing several times. During their petitioning, relevant departments of the Hubei provincial and central governments gave clear replies to their complaints that work would be arranged in accordance with the document’s provisions. However, officials in their hometown, including Yunxi County Party Secretary Lu Fuchang, acted out of self-interest and used their authority to forcibly suppress and pressure them, resulting in persecution. Starting in August 2005, the sisters, who had originally been notified while petitioning in Beijing to report for work at the county tobacco bureau on August 30, returned to the county, only for Yunxi County police to confiscate their written notification and inexplicably and unlawfully place both of them in administrative detention for 15 days. They were later sent to reeducation through labor for 1 year and 9 months. From May 21 to October 23, 2007, because they continued petitioning, they were unlawfully detained at a secret detention site established by Yunxi County Party Secretary Lu Fuchang—the Sigou Tobacco Station (inside an abandoned compound)—causing their grandmother to die of anger and grief. On March 7 and August 9, 2008, they were taken back from Beijing by people dispatched by the local authorities and detained at the Tumen Township government twice, for a total of 53 days. Subsequently, the issue of the two sisters’ civil-service positions was reported in April 2008 through the mayor’s hotline and public supervision telephone, and it was announced online on June 12 of the same year that they would be given civil-service positions. Nevertheless, local officials continued to ignore this, knowingly violating the law, and repeatedly brought the two sisters back from Beijing in prison vehicles, detaining them in the Tumen Township welfare institute or psychiatric hospital, where they were beaten, threatened, intimidated, and abused. On March 18, 2012, while hospitalized at Taihe Hospital in Shiyan City awaiting surgery, she was again arrested by police and once more detained at the Maoping Welfare Institute (during the same period, her younger sister was also kidnapped from Wuhan and taken to the same welfare institute for detention). During their detention, both women were forcibly made to take medication and injected with toxic substances, nearly dying as a result.

In April 2022, the two sisters again went to Beijing to petition for redress, exposing what had happened to them in the hope of receiving help from the central government. However, they were quickly sent back to their place of origin and detained for a prolonged period. On June 14 of the same year, the two were transferred to criminal detention by Yunxi County police on suspicion of “seeking trouble,” and were later formally indicted by the Yunxi County Procuratorate on the same charge. That year, the two sisters were ultimately both heavily sentenced by the Yunxi County Court to 8 years and 6 months in prison for “picking quarrels and provoking trouble.” Dissatisfied with the judgment, they filed appeals. The following year, after a second-instance judgment by the Shiyan Intermediate People’s Court of Hubei Province, they requested that the above judgment be revoked in accordance with the law. On February 24, 2025, it was learned that she had also filed a retrial application with the Hubei Provincial High Court, requesting that she be declared innocent in accordance with the law, but details of subsequent developments remain unknown. She is currently detained at the Yunxi County Detention Center in Shiyan City (Dongfang Community, Chengguan Township, Yunxi County, Shiyan City, Hubei Province; postal code: 442600).