Who this record covers
金汉艳 (Jin Hanyan) is a petitioner from Yunxi County, Shiyan city, in Hubei province. She and her younger sister, 金汉琴 (Jin Hanqin), spent decades seeking redress after an expected civil-service placement following their 1997 graduation from the Shiyan agricultural school never materialized. In 2022 both sisters were detained after petitioning in Beijing and sentenced to 8 years and 6 months each on a charge of picking quarrels and provoking trouble.
Background and petitioning history
According to a prisoners-of-conscience database record, Jin and her sister graduated from the Shiyan agricultural school (then the Hubei Shiyan Agricultural School) in 1997. They expected to receive assigned work posts and civil-service posts under a provincial graduates-placement document, but say the local government never honored it and the posts went to others. Years of appeals to county, provincial, and central authorities produced no resolution. During those years the sisters reported being detained multiple times: held in an unofficial detention facility in 2007, seized from Beijing and confined by the township government in 2008, and confined in a welfare home and a psychiatric hospital — including forced medication — around 2012. In November 2013, the advocacy outlet 民生观察 (People’s Livelihood Watch) reported that Jin had been intercepted in Beijing and was being held in an unofficial detention facility — a black jail — in her home township, one of a group of petitioners seized during a petitioning trip.
Detention and conviction
In April 2022, Jin Hanyan and her sister traveled to Beijing to petition again. They were seized by Yunxi County stability-maintenance personnel and confined in a business hotel in Shiyan for an extended period. On June 14, 2022, the Yunxi County Public Security Bureau confiscated their phones and placed both under criminal detention on suspicion of picking quarrels and provoking trouble; on June 28 they were transferred to the Shiyan City Detention Center. The Yunxi County Court later sentenced both sisters to 8 years and 6 months’ imprisonment for picking quarrels and provoking trouble, with the sentence term ending December 13, 2030. The same April–June 14–June 28 sequence, including the suspected offense and the detention-center transfer, is recorded in the Rights Defense Network’s monthly prisoner report for July 2022.
Appeal and retrial application
Jin appealed the sentence. The Shiyan Intermediate Court, on second instance, ruled that the original judgment should be revoked. On February 24, 2025, she applied to the Hubei High Court for a retrial, asking to be declared innocent. No information is available on what followed; the outcome is not known.
Recorded status
The Rights Defense Network’s Issue 131 monthly report (August 31, 2026) lists 金汉艳 in its sentenced-to-8-years-6-months group as in custody. A prisoners-of-conscience database record (entered August 4, 2022) places her at the Yunxi County Detention Center in Shiyan. This record does not assert her current place of detention or whether the retrial application has been decided.
Identification method
The Issue 131 roster’s Chinese edition lists 金汉艳 in its sentenced-to-8-years-6-months group. A record in a prisoners-of-conscience database gives the same Chinese characters with the romanization “Jin Hanyan,” a Yunxi County petitioner, detained April 2022, sentenced to 8 years and 6 months with a term ending December 13, 2030. The Rights Defense Network’s July 2022 report gives the same detention sequence and the same suspected offense. Of 4,372 records in the database, exactly one matches this name. She is the sister of 金汉琴 (Jin Hanqin), a separate prisoner with her own record; the two must not be merged.
What this record does not claim
This page does not independently verify the trial or the conviction; it reports what the database record and the advocacy reports record. It does not state whether the retrial application was accepted or decided. It does not assert her current place of detention beyond the latest dated evidence.
Sources: Prisoners of Conscience database (record entered August 4, 2022); Rights Defense Network monthly prisoner reports, July 31, 2022 and August 31, 2026; 民生观察 (People’s Livelihood Watch), November 11, 2013. See the Media Profile & Archive for the full source chronology and evidentiary limits.