Dong Yanmei (董艳梅）, born in 1970, is a Falun Gong practitioner from Liaoyang City, Liaoning Province, formerly an assistant engineer at the Liaohua Polyester Factory. She began practicing Falun Gong in 1998. Since 1999 she has been detained three times and sentenced twice — once to seven years and once to four and a half years, for a combined 11.5 years of imprisonment — before her most recent detention on September 14, 2022.
Note: this profile concerns the Liaoning practitioner. A separate, unrelated case — the Beijing house-church missionary Dong Yanmei, a native of Mianyang, Sichuan, detained in 2025 — is documented separately and must not be confused with this person.
Earlier detentions and sentences
In 1999 and 2002, Dong was repeatedly held in the Liaoyang Detention Center and in a Hongwei District brainwashing center. On April 11, 2002, the Hongwei District People’s Court of Liaoyang sentenced her to seven years in prison; she was held in the Shenyang Dabei Women’s Prison. After about six and a half years there, she returned home, and her former work unit terminated her employment.
On April 28, 2013, Dong was detained by police from the Xinhua Police Station in Liaoyang and held in the Liaoyang Detention Center. She was subsequently sentenced to four and a half years and held in the Liaoning Women’s Prison.
The 2022 detention
On September 14, 2022, Dong was detained in a joint operation by Liaoyang and Anshan police at a rented residence in Anshan and held in the Liaoyang Detention Center. In February 2024 it was reported that the Dengta City Court had sentenced her; the length of the sentence was not stated in the available records. She was transferred to the Liaoning No. 2 Women’s Prison (Ward 8, Team 4).
Reports from 2023–2024 describe harsh conditions in custody, including being denied washing, family phone calls, and visits, and being made to stand from early morning until late at night. Dong staged hunger strikes in protest in October 2023 and April 2024. These accounts come from Falun Gong-affiliated reporting and have not been independently verified.
Status
As of 2024 reporting, Dong was held in the Liaoning No. 2 Women’s Prison following her sentencing by the Dengta City Court; the sentence length is not publicly documented. Her current status is unverified.
Detention, sentencing, and mistreatment accounts above are attributed to the cited sources. Chinese court or official records for this case have not been located. Sources: CHRD Prisoners of Conscience database, 董艳梅 record (entered March 18, 2024); Minghui victim library, record i57334 (updated May 19, 2024); 维权网, Issue 131 monthly report, August 31, 2026. See the Media Archive for full source detail, per-item verification, and evidentiary limits.
View the Dong Yanmei (董艳梅， Liaoning) Media Profile & Archive for the complete source record and provenance.